X and Zero, Sliders Extraordinaire
by kaelenmitharos
Summary: Megaman X and Zero are the strongest fighters of their world. How will they fare on other worlds when Gate goes into interdimensional technology instead of reploid design? Rated T for robot violence and puberty.
1. Chapter 1

**X and Zero: Sliders Extraordinaire**

Prologue

I turned on my creator in disgust. "Flip a coin? You suggest that I, the greatest scientist ever made, turn to random chance to determine his career? You're making me laugh."

The old man stared emotionlessly back at me. He was too weak even to form a decent expression of indignation.

What a disgrace, an injustice that this wrinkled old human had the nerve to build me! And now, of all things, he dared suggest so arbitrary a method for me to choose my path. All the while, his array of support machines thumped and hummed in the background, processing his fluids in a determined effort to spare his life; I wondered if they hadn't turned his brain to mush instead. Pity they couldn't have killed him in the process.

Aurelius Cain sluggishly shrugged his wizened old shoulders. His voice barely managed a whisper; electronic implants helped him here too, in the form of subcutaneous microphones. What a tremendous waste of circuitry.

"You are my last and greatest creation. No matter what you do, you will make me proud." His voice rasped disgustingly from a throat ravaged by disease and covered in whitish scars. Those old hazel eyes fixed unblinkingly on my own. "No matter what, Gate. Whether chance chooses or you do."

I allowed for a dignified, disdainful silence after that statement. With the briefest sneer to show my absolute disgust for his sickly old body, I turned my back on my creator forever. He died a short few years later.

I had made my decision long before then.

Heads, I would go into derived science and make reploids like every half-rate machinist from California to Pakistan. At best, I make reploids as good as Megaman X or Zero, only to have the Maverick Virus swoop in and destroy my best work in a moment.

Tails, I turn to fundamental theories and manipulate the very curvature of the universe. I succeed where Einstein failed—the Grand Unification Theory.

Why flip the coin in the first place? Looking back, the choice is obvious.

Tails.

* * *

><p>Chapter One: in which Zero uses excessive force.<p>

"You just had to turn down the peace pipe!"

"I didn't think I'd be declaring war!"

Arrows whizzed over our heads as we ran through the brush. I struggled to pump my wimpy human legs any faster; X had a lead on me and the natives were closing from behind. "This is insane! Why did we come here, anyway?"

"I told you, I don't know! The—gah!" An arrow broke on the back of X's blue plate mail. "Just focus on running!"

I gritted my teeth. Leaves whipped in my face as I ducked under a low-hanging branch. I dropped a hand to my side, where the hilt to my long sword lay against the swordbelt. "We can't keep running forever! They're faster than us!"

As if to prove my point, a couple of bare-chested natives with hand axes popped out of the bushes to my side, swinging for my neck. I batted one aside with a gauntleted hand, and the other skipped off my bright red shoulder armor. X faced similar problems when another fighter in leather leggings dropped out of a tree to spear him in the chest.

"Hyah—uhg!" The muscled brave lost his war-shout and his weapon in an unintelligible grunt as X's fist buried itself in his gut. Next the man's own spear thumped into the back of his neck, a blow scientifically placed to bring him down to the ground without killing him. The Blue Bomber ran on with spear in hand. He was almost side by side with me thanks to the delay.

"If we can survive another hour, then we'll slide out anyway." He broke the spear on a tree as we passed, and the weapon disappeared in a swirl of light. In another second his armor changed color to oak-brown, leather-tan and three shades of leafy green. It was almost good enough to work as camouflage. "I'm sure they won't chase us forever."

"We don't have forever, X. My lungs—" I coughed up phlegm and drew my sword as I ran. Noises from behind told me a couple of braves were gaining fast. "We'll run outta steam!"

He glanced over his shoulder. "Don't hurt anyone, Zero!"

"Not unless they try to hurt me first."

I pivoted around 180° and skidded to a stop with sword drawn out in front of me. Three native warriors closed in at a run, one of them ducking as two stopped to throw tomahawks. I dodged the one and smacked the other from the air with a blow from my sword.

"Come on, give it another try!" I roared my challenge at their brown-skinned faces. Another volley of arrows hit home on my breastplate, but my feet were set and the wooden shafts splintered off me like twigs. If I got unlucky and they hit a weak spot, I was dead, but none of the bowmen were close enough to aim that well yet.

Meanwhile, the braves in front of me looked a little uncertain. The oldest was aged maybe forty years, and the other two twenty or less. One of them glanced over his shoulder to see how fast reinforcements were coming, and I didn't think I'd get a better shot. I charged them with another roar.

My attack didn't make the oldest warrior as much as blink. He brought up his hand axe in a lightning reflex and hurled it for my face. The weapon spun in so fast I nearly missed it.

But I didn't.

My sword caught the axe where handle met head. Instead of just blocking it, my blade sheared its way through the weapon's iron blade. The disembodied handle thunked off my hip while most of the head buried itself in a tree limb to my right. None of this stopped the momentum of my charge, which carried me right into the first human warrior.

He had a spear ready to gore me, and the hard cast of his expression made me think he knew how to use it. Even his elder's lost weapon or the crazy look in my own eyes didn't faze him. The brave stabbed hard at the chain mail joint where my breastplate hung over my codpiece.

He never quite reached it. I threw myself sidelong to him, letting the spearhead skip some black paint off my chain mail as it passed. My following shoulder rush smashed into the warrior's chest and threw him bodily into one of his comrades. I let the remaining brave have a good, hard swing of the sword, which bit into his weird pointy club and slammed it into his head with one clean motion. Dang, but I am good.

The brave staggered and fell with his eyes crossing. With luck, I hadn't given him more than a bad concussion. I freed my blade with a quick stomp on the club.

Those danged bowmen didn't stop, though. More arrows flew in from the forest and smacked into my armor at the legs. Before I could move to protect myself, I felt a jerk against the inside of my thigh, where my plate mail didn't cover me properly. My armor was designed for horseback maneuvers, and it's hard to sit on a horse with metal plating right where your legs rest against the saddle, so I didn't have anything more than leather there. Hot red blood ran down my leg.

X dropped down from the trees some fifty yards ahead of me and thwacked a few bowmen with his new spear. Before the rest knew what had hit them, he was gone into the branches again. That's the Blue Bomber for you. With how fast he adapts, you'd think he's something supernatural.

I grinned. More braves rustled in from the brush on either side and the two fighters in front were slowly getting back up, but X had given me a battle plan. Ignoring the hot, lancing pain from my wounded leg muscles, I stepped forward and hauled the youngest warrior to his feet by grabbing him around the neck.

"Listen up, Red Leaf Warriors!" I bellowed loud enough to startle birds from the trees a hundred yards away. "Before I start fighting!"

The landscape around me fell silent as the braves hesitated. I had them now. Holding their tribesman off to one side, his toes barely brushing the ground, I continued my speech. My voice came out in a vicious growl. "I brought the tent down on your chieftain, but I'll bring down your whole tribe if you keep this up. I control the ghosts in the forest and the birds in the trees!"

A spear shot down from the trees at an angle, slicing through one man's bowstring before planting its foot-long head in the dirt. Another man next to him disappeared into the trees as a camouflaged figure caught him from above. Before all eyes turned away from the scene again, the spear dissolved into a shimmering cloud and vanished away.

"Your kinsmen will die!" I directed my shout at the oldest brave I'd seen. It looked like he had a joint twisted out of place from when I shoulder-rushed his tribesman into him. The hardened old warrior glared at me with hard brown eyes set in a stoic mask. Meanwhile, his younger tribesman scratched feebly at my arm, rasping desperately for air.

I forced my expression to harden further. "Keep coming after us, and we'll bring an army of ghosts and soldiers to your tents. Let us go in peace and your people can live. Or do you want the spirits to avenge us?"

A warrior fell from the trees into the brush. He lay very still when he landed.

"Speak or the spirits will speak again!" I lowered my sword at the elder warrior. The brave I held on my left had nearly passed out from lack of oxygen.

I watched the older man's eyes, waiting for his response. The forest held its breath as the desperation grew behind his wooden features. I felt the pulse weaken in the throat of the man I held, and my heart sank. What had I done?

When X didn't take the peace pipe, the natives around the fire had turned ugly. Their leaders started springing to their feet and I thought for sure they meant to attack. I've lived through attack after Maverick attack by moving fast, grabbing the initiative, and all but jumping the gun to get off the first attack. When the natives jumped to their feet I did too, sword halfway from its sheath before I knew I had drawn it. Just like that, confusion turned into violence. We ran from the tent before the chieftain ordered his braves to skin us alive.

Now I had probably cracked one human's skull and brought another one to the point of passing out. Unless I let him go in another few seconds, he'd suffer permanent damage. We'd gone from trade negotiations to broken bones and homicide in the blink of an eye.

The forty-something native opened his mouth to speak, and my fingers twitched to release his tribesman. He got out four words:

"You have brought dishonor—"

And the universe disappeared from around us.

G0G0G

My instruments returned a few interesting data points from their observation of the moving fabric called space-time. Apparently, sending X and Zero through the wormhole to another universe had created a great deal of flux in the subspace around their anchor point.

Excellent. Maverick Hunter Headquarters' paltry research funds and my years of effort had not gone to waste; all proceeded as planned.

I, the great Dr. Gate, had of course utilized my own person as that interdimensional anchor point. As such, my continued existence in this universe helped to limit theirs in that one, just as a ship cannot wash away while an anchor holds it down. So long as I held the circuits of the Multi-Dimensional Anchor in my body, I functioned as their tether to home, a beacon for their subspace imprints to follow in their journey back. One copy of the circuits resided in my brain while another resided near my power core; even if I lost one, the other still held the power to bring the sliding adventurers back. And, simultaneously, to keep the side effects of their transference centered strictly on my body.

After checking them for consistency, I fed the observed data into a program prepared for the purpose of further analysis. I felt a certain personal stake in the results. Based on what my Grand Unified Theory illuminated for me so far, repeated flux of space-time around my person could possibly weaken the stability of my own subspace imprint and render me a soulless incarnation of the void. Or, possibly, our universe's fabric could weaken around me, rendering me a source for secondary wormhole effects. A gate to subspace, if you will.

Such interesting possibilities. But I had no way of knowing their total veracity just yet. That remained to be calculated—and observed.

A queer popping and a flash of light interrupted my musings. X and Zero, sliders extraordinaire, had returned.

XGXGX

"That was ridiculous."

Zero threw down his MDI and stalked out of the room. His long blond ponytail lashed one way and the other with the rhythm of his stride, nearly catching in the door as it slid shut behind him. I tried to react in time to stop him, but those two seconds of post-slide grogginess held me down too long.

Sliding between dimensions must be close to the strangest thing we've ever done. My thoughts turned back to those people and the expressions on their faces when they first saw us, wandering unafraid through their lands in our shining colored armor. It was weird at first to see that our MDIs had turned our bodies human for that universe, but I wonder if it wasn't even stranger for the people there.

Unbidden, and for what felt like the hundredth time, my last meeting with Dr. Light burst in on my thoughts.

X

_White winter waves whipped around my face as I marched towards the cave entrance. Frost Walrus might have been retired, but his zone remained as inhospitable as ever. The 17th Elites had gone beyond the call of duty to find Dr. Light's capsule in a place like this._

_I smiled happily into the freezing air. That was my unit, always doing more than I asked of them. _

X

"Zero seems upset." Dr. Gate leaned back from the control panel with an expression of detached curiosity. "Whatever happened on the other side?"

I shook my head and came out of my reverie. I must have looked a little strange, standing there staring at the door, but the researcher's expression didn't indicate he'd seen anything unusual. A tiny smile curled on his angular face.

"We ran into some trouble. Dr. Gate, weren't we supposed to come down near a metal-rich town somewhere? The people we met seemed more like hunter-gatherers than miners. Also, and not that I'm not grateful, but we came back an hour before schedule."

"Interesting…maybe a scanner malfunction? I really need to work out the bugs on those." Talking mostly to himself, the scientist Reploid maneuvered around a tangled array of wires and computers, making his way for the platform where Zero and I had reappeared. His expression of curiosity turned to frustration as he fought through the chaos.

"I do so hate the condition of this laboratory! It's impossible to make any progress with everything so sloppy. Never mind, very soon we'll make a much better setup and my work can really begin. New trade agreements are only the beginning of what wormhole travel can do for us, you know."

I just sighed. After what happened, what Zero had been through, I didn't have the heart to respond to Gate's enthusiastic predictions; besides which, the time had come to go report to Signas. I picked up Zero's Multi-Dimensional Interface and presented the research reploid with both MDIs.

"I'm sure General Signas will be in touch with you soon. See you, Dr. Gate."

An eager gleam shone from his eyes as he took the devices. They were small and nondescript, almost like little metal breadboxes, but these little metal breadboxes had taken us to another world and back again. Incredible, the advances the scientist had made in so short a time.

Gate didn't seem ignorant of his successes, either. From what I gathered, he had an unfortunate reputation for lording it over the other scientists around him, and didn't show any particular affection for authority figures either. He responded to my statement with a pinched expression. "He will, will he? Hmph."

I smiled back at him before the door closed behind me, but the researcher was already making a path back to his workbench. Maybe the MDIs themselves were small, but the equipment for building and designing them wasn't. The new equipment for calculating wormhole travel had completely taken over Gate's laboratory.

I turned and walked down the wide, curving halls of Maverick Hunter HQ. General Signas' office was on the other side of the base, and he wanted us to report on our second slide as soon as possible, but I had a lot to think about before the debriefing. My armored metal feet moved slowly through the chrome-lined halls.

X

_Dr. Light had chosen an odd location, underground in this inhospitable place. I don't know how he moves his capsules around or powers them, but this one he'd dropped in a surprisingly warm location for the surrounding terrain. As I slid down the first part of the tunnel, then climbed up the second, my instruments read the temperature rise from below 0 to almost fifteen Centigrade. Inside the final chamber, it felt like fully twenty. _

X

Zero hadn't really recovered from the fight on the Final Weapon yet. In public he refused food, broke furniture and made snide remarks at anyone who crossed his path; in private he sat hunched over, staring at the wall, brooding over what had happened. He barely trained anymore and he'd left his unit in the hands of his new second, Chrome Tiger.

Those last two behaviors worried me the most. Maybe normal people take time to recover after a major fight, but in the first war Zero had survived power core detonation only to run back to the front lines the minute we rebuilt him. I've personally seen him go down fighting, have a near-death experience, and then wake up to tear someone's legs off for "looking at me funny."

He was right to do so, it turned out. The reploid mechanic had been a Maverick responsible for building critical faults into the Ride Armors we used in heavy fighting. Zero had an uncanny knack for spotting people infected with the Maverick Virus.

At that point I my communicator buzzed with a text message from one of the office secretaries. My waffle maker had arrived. That made me smile. Not to be distracted, though, I got back to worrying about Zero.

In summary, I knew better than to think the last battle with Sigma left the fighting robot with some kind of crippling physical injury. No, Zero wasn't hurting because he'd fought the boss of all Mavericks. He was hurting because he'd fought his own spotter, Iris.

I turned a corner, leaving the Research and Development wing and heading for the officers' quarters. Most high-ranking Hunters, myself and Zero included, slept in rooms joined to our separate offices. It was easier that way, and the kind of reploids who made it to officer status tended not to care much about the frills in life. I'm one of only two of us who owns a house outside the base.

A couple of reploids I knew ran into me on my way through HQ. I gave them cheerful smiles and whatever greetings came to mind, but most of my processing power dwelt on the problem of Zero and on Gate's new wormhole devices.

At first it seemed like a great idea: the power to cross subspace to other universes, trade technology for valuable resources, and maybe even find uninhabited worlds for humans and reploids to settle. Unfortunately, our first slide had ended in failure and our second in disaster. None of this had improved Zero's state of mind or my outlook on sliding.

I was just wondering how to break all this to Signas when a worried soprano voice interrupted my thoughts. A shiver travelled up my spine.

X

_The chamber itself wasn't much to speak of. Hardened river clay with old sedimentary layers underneath made up the earthen walls. The sedimentary deposits had little sea creatures stuck in them from thousands or tens of thousands of years ago, their calcified remains reminding me of a time before robots, reploids, or even humans. Other than that, it was simply a dark, warm, slightly damp chamber with a huge cylindrical machine that held the brilliant mind of my incredible creator, Dr. Thomas Light._

_My movements slowed as I approached the capsule. Here he was again, as so many times before, hidden from the sight of anyone but his last creation. And as I thought those words his hologram flared into life, bright as a halogen lamp in the dark room. The old man looked down at me and laughed his jolly old man laughter._

_"X, it's been so long! What, a month now? How's the Fourth armor treating you?"_

_His voice bore tiny distortions from imperfections in the audio systems, but it was him. I smiled. "I'm doing very well, Father, and the armor's doing great too. The multi-shot option works out well for the most part. I think the Nova Strike is the best, though. Where do you get the ideas for all these parts?" _

_"Now, now, if I told you that you'd be able to make your own armors, X. I can't have you doing that—when do I ever get to see you besides when you come to me for upgrades?"_

_He laughed, but I frowned, scrunching up my forehead in disapproval. "That's not the only reason. I'd come to talk to you whether you had weapons and armor for me or not."_

X

"X, there you are!" The speaker's footfalls slowed from a run to a walk. "What happened just now? Zero ripped off the front door on his way off the base. Even for him, that's pushing it."

My facial features carefully reassembled themselves into a guarded expression of concern, and I turned around to face her. Alia stopped a couple of feet away and gave me a worried look. I forced myself to ignore her…design and bring Zero's problems back to mind. Unfortunately, we weren't alone in the hallway, and everything I wanted to say was more or less confidential. "We had some trouble."

Something in my tone tipped her off. The blue-eyed reploid nodded and pulled me along to walk with her. Her voice came in a low, forcibly relaxed tone that belied the message in her words. "What kind of trouble? I'll understand if you can't tell me everything here."

My whole body tingled at the touch of her fingers, while a sudden spike in fusion core temperature sent a rush of heat to my head. A wave of dizziness washed over my senses. Even now, four weeks after the upgrade, I still had trouble keeping my body's reactions under control around her.

X

_"I know, I know." He waved his hands in emphasis, to placate me. "I'm sure you'd come to see me regardless, but you're too easy to tease, X. Doesn't your friend Zero have as much fun teasing you as I do?"_

_"Hmph. My father is so cruel, he wants all my friends to laugh at me like he does." I pouted. "There's no hope for me. I'll be a laughingstock until I rust away into pieces."_

_Dr. Light chuckled and wagged his finger at me. "Not for another eight hundred years, X. You have a lot of life left to live, and I mean to see that you enjoy it. That's why I came here in this capsule today, in fact."_

_I nodded. Here it came. "You have another armor part for me?" _

_"Oh no, I'm sure what you have will be more than enough." He coughed. "No, what I have for you today is not so much for your quantity of life, X, as it is for your quality of life."_

X

The reploid felt my body sway as I walked, and tightened her grip. My coolant pump worked like mad to compensate for the excess heat and keep it away from my brain. "Wait, X, are you all right? Your cheeks are turning red."

X

_I felt like a kid on Christmas morning. "What is it? A new karaoke system? Better looks? Zero's always making fun of me for looking like a teenager. I'll still be recognizable to my team, though, won't I? I'd hate for them to not know who I was." My mechanical fingers twiddled with excitement. "What is it, Dr. Light?"_

_"You'll see soon enough. It's going to revolutionize the way androids look at their lives, and you'll be the first to pioneer the new system. For that reason, and for many others, this may be a hard change for you." My father's eyes took on a certain softness, though the hologram's sketchy imaging made it difficult to tell. "Next time you find one of my capsules, I want you to bring a special friend along for me to work on. Your new upgrade isn't really complete until you can share it with someone else."_

_This last part mystified me. I'm sure it showed on my face, because Dr. Light laughed again. "Don't be afraid, X. This is for your own good and everyone else's, too. Step into the capsule and you'll understand very soon."_

_I hesitated, knowing that once I entered the device I'd lose contact with my creator until I found another capsule. He encouraged me with a fatherly smile. "Come now, don't worry. I'll see you again soon, son."_

_I thanked him and he disappeared with a wave good-bye. Having to say farewell damped my enthusiasm for the new upgrade, but not enough to keep me from stepping up onto the brightly colored metal platform. Glass panels sprouted up to insulate me from the outside world, and colorless gaseous argon flooded the container, forcing out gasses like oxygen that would react undesirably to the capsule's method of upgrading my systems. Next, energetic packets of particles started to shoot through the air around me, cascading from the top of the capsule to the bottom and back again. They shot faster and faster through the air until the argon was no more than a low-power plasma. My body started to burn from the inside out, worse than with any other upgrade._

_What was happening to me?_

X

I shook my head as if to clear it. "Don't worry, it's nothing. Zero's angry about our last mission. It wasn't very successful."

Out of the corner of my eye I saw her frown deepen at the way I changed the subject. She paused before asking her next question, as if struggling to resist probing me further about my own apparent problems. Alia's not the type to let a mystery stay mysterious. Even more importantly, she considers it her personal responsibility to make sure Zero and I don't work ourselves to death. Literally.

For the moment, concern for Zero won out. He had, after all, ripped a door off its hinges and stormed out of the base for no apparent reason. She continued in a low but casual tone to keep from drawing attention. "Do you mean the Final Weapon?"

"Yes, and a few small jobs here on base."

Her clear blue eyes peered over into my green ones, and I saw her expression change as she decoded what I meant. "You didn't find what General Signas sent you to look for."

Ah, so she understood. "No, and we accidentally tipped over a cabinet. No one was permanently damaged, though."

I thought I'd crafted this last piece of code fairly well, but Alia crinkled her nose up at me. "A cabinet? That's all?"

"There were humans on site." Recognition dawned in the reploid's eyes, and a little fear. I shook my head and continued. "Like I mentioned, I don't think the injuries are past fixing, but Zero blames himself and I'm wondering if trying to fetch that item was worth the mess."

Alia opened her mouth, shut it, and shook her head. Her short blond locks bounced around her face in a way that made me bite my lip. "We'll talk more later. In your office, around 1900 hours?"

X

_Lightning surged down through the argon plasma. And if it wasn't lightning, it looked and sounded like nothing else. The energy sizzled down into my helmet, coursed through my titanium alloy bones, and coruscated out through my feet into the other end of the capsule. On its way it buzzed through my systems and altered my functioning forever._

_I shivered. Goosebumps, that's tingly._

_When the argon finally resettled and the capsule walls came down, I felt no different than before. The crawly sensation on my skin gently faded with the rush of normal air over my armor. _I didn't know it yet, but I was a whole new android.

X

This evening? Alone, with her? No!

I hesitated, wondering if she heard how hard my coolant pump was beating. Meeting together had been common in the old days, before my upgrade. The upgrade I hadn't told her about, the one I'd never seen coming…since that day, I'd been careful not to leave myself alone with her.

I was about to make some excuse, put Alia off, when a surge of guilt blocked my throat. With Zero in his condition, was I really going to deny the one other person best capable of helping him? What kind of friend did that make me?

My face caught on fire as I replied. "Yes, of course. Thanks for taking the time, Alia."

Her smile triggered a rush of gratification that made it hard to look away. "Anything for a friend, right? Which reminds me…"

Alia reached up and brushed her fingertips against my throat, and I practically had a seizure. When I did that the reploid frowned and pinned me to the wall, feeling around for the line that fed power and coolant into my electronic brain. She found it in short order, and I froze at her touch on my pulse.

She shook her head at me, still frowning. "Like I thought, you're burning up. X, you're going to go see Lifesaver after this meeting with Signas, or you'll answer to me later tonight."

Her tone brooked no disagreement. I resisted for a moment longer, feeling trapped in more ways than one. "No, Alia, it's really nothing, I promise youaaargh—unh."

My neck hurt briefly where she'd pinched it. The blond's expression had turned fierce; she looked like a pink-armored she-wolf with misbehaving cubs. "Forget it! You've been acting weird for weeks, X, and now I have proof that you're malfunctioning. I won't let you put yourself at risk for no reason like this. I—I just won't."

I gaped at her in surprise, recognizing the sparkle of tears in her eyes. The reploid's gaze fell to the floor and her arms dropped to her sides. She took a step back and crossed them over her chest. "Besides, going out into the field with an injury is against regulations if there's a way to get treatment first. You know that."

Of course I knew that regulation. I wrote it. But Alia had no idea what was really wrong with me.

Silence reigned for a long moment while I gazed into her beautiful pale face. Even without the capacity for romantic attachment, she felt for me this strongly?

I understood the fear of losing me. Zero avoided close friendships for that reason; other than me, to a lesser extent Alia, and until recently Iris, he looked at everyone around him as potential casualties in the next serious conflict. According to him, I'm too tough and too smart to die before he can get to me; again according to him, Alia's probably hiding a backup model of herself somewhere; and Iris—he thought she was too small and helpless for Sigma to bother with infecting. No one, least of all Zero, expected her to go rogue on her own. The little reploid proved us wrong.

Alia apparently didn't intend to make the same mistake of negligence with me and my health. I felt a lash of guilt at the realization that my behavior, my keeping secrets, had brought her to the point of tears.

Without thinking, I stepped in towards her and half-lifted my arms around the reploid's body. Maybe a month ago that would've been fine, but here and now—I jerked away from her before my traitorous arms could close the embrace.

"I'm sorry, I have to go!" I turned and raced down the hall.

"Nineteen hundred hours, Commander!" she shot at my back as I departed. "You'd better have seen Lifesaver by then!"

I didn't respond. Reaching Signas' door, I turned the handle and threw myself inside, finally safe from my libidinous urges.

"That was way too close." Eyes squeezed shut with relief, I let out a breath and leaned against the door. Alia no doubt wondered what my sudden departure meant, but she was back in the hallway and I was home free. Great Light, but that had been too clo—

"Commander X?" Signas' voice roused me from my reverie. My eyes snapped open to see him sitting at his desk with pen in hand, settled uneasily on a stack of papers. "Your face is red as a beet. Are you feeling all right?"

I blinked at him for a second. Equipped with that severe military desk, the high-backed red leather swivel chair, and the Maverick Hunter insignia on every piece of furniture, the General's office dwarfed most reploids with both its size and its sheer officialdom. The reploid in front of me dominated it easily. Signas' size, black armor and severe military hat were designed for intimidation, as far as I can suppose, although I'd known him too long for that to work very well. Besides, he wasn't wearing the hat today for some reason. "General Signas, good to see you. Did you want a report on the second wormhole mission?"

He cocked a thick, black eyebrow at me, his mouth set in a wary line. "You barged in here without knocking for that?"

"No sir, not at all. I'm sorry, I had to get away from Alia. Never mind." I forced my thoughts away from her before I got lost again. Later, I told myself. "I have a feeling Zero won't be coming back for a while, but when he does he can give you his report too."

"Hmm." Signas fixed me with a long, calculating stare. "You know, if you have a problem with her, we can move Alia back to Research and Developm—"

"No! I mean, no sir. She's not a problem. Our second slide with Gate's equipment didn't turn out so well, though. In fact, I'm having doubts about the whole process right now." My eyes strayed downwards as I changed the subject. Wait, what was that under the end table? "The MDIs are still glitchy, and I'm worried about whether we can—I'm sorry, but is that your hat down there?"

Signas cleared his throat and tapped his fingers on his desk. "You were saying, about the MDIs? What kind of problems are we talking about here?"

"It is your hat. And there are playing cards lying around it…" I crouched down on the floor to get a better angle.

When I glanced back up at him, the general was scowling at me. "That's not important now. X, we can't allow ourselves to be distracted with an entire Maverick-fighting organization to run."

"It doesn't take that much work to run in peacetime. We mostly hire secretaries for that. General Signas, were you tossing cards into your hat to kill time?"

"No, not at all. Of course not."

"It's all right. I understand. I mean, if it weren't for karaoke and hunting out Dr. Light's capsules, I don't know how I'd spend all my spare time between wars. After Dr. Cain passed away I nearly died of boredom trying to take his place here."

"I was merely training my hand-eye coordination. There's nothing wrong with a reploid practicing his combat skills to take a break."

I nodded. "Of course not. And if that means playing a few hours of Xbox when nobody's watching, who's to say there's no training value in a good FPS? We should game together sometime. I'll make waffles."

He gave me an unfriendly look. "I do not play Xbox."

I nodded again. Here we had been working together for almost a year now, since before the fourth war, and I was just getting to know my commanding officer. "No, it's the Wii for you, isn't it? I guess that works, if you can deal with the limited selection. The only WiiSport I ever liked was frisbee." I mimed flicking a game disk with my hand.

Signas sat back in his chair, his face unreadable. I sighed. "Now, about the wormhole project…"

"What, starting without me?"

I turned around to see Zero standing in the entryway. That android is incredibly quiet when he wants to be, which is almost never, making him all the more unexpected on the rare occasion.

Pardon me for taking a tangent, but you'll notice I say "android," not "reploid." Zero and I are the original androids. All other sentient robots are based on our design; replicated androids, or reploids, for short. Most people don't think about that distinction much, and I'm happy that they don't, but there's no way for me to forget that Zero and I are two of a kind. Even if we probably don't share a creator, I think of us as brothers, and brothers look out for each other.

0X0X0

X got out of his chair and hugged me.

Do you know how hard it is to stay mad when that dumb blue robot is hanging on around your chest? I can never tell when he's about to pull that trick, either. It's like there's a switch in his head that randomly goes "plonk," and next thing I know he's all over me. At least if we were human I could call him a gaytard and shove him off, but everyone knows reploids don't have genitals. There's no chance of him being gay even if he wanted to be.

I settled for patting him awkwardly on the head. "There there, baby X. You're going to be all right. Daddy's home now."

He released me and wordlessly pulled out a chair, green eyes smiling. That's another thing. I can't get under the guy's skin without three days and a surgical tool. What is it about X that makes him immune to teasing? Is it that I haven't found the right method, or does he have some kind of censor that blocks out negative thoughts?

Either way, he drove me nuts. Time for business.

"All right then, sunny smiles everyone. We've been to two universes and had a grand total of no successes at all." I folded my arms and stalked all the way into the room to stand in front of Signas' desk. "Gate's new trick isn't doing anyone any good. I say we send rookies through it for training and stop trying to turn ourselves into intergalactic door-to-door salesmen."

Signas frowned. "Please, take a seat, Commander Zero."

After a split second pause, I let myself slide into one of the chairs by X. He patted me on the shoulder and started the discussion of the mission.

"Gate finished his latest version of the MDIs about…" the Blue Bomber glanced up at the ornate steel clock on Signas' wall. "Half an hour ago, and we left on our second interdimensional slide immediately afterwards."

"Wait. Half an hour?" My eyes went to the clock to check, and darn it if X wasn't right. "That clock must be wrong. We were there for at least an hour before things went screwy, and Gate warped us back a couple of minutes afterwards. Half an hour is too short."

X nodded. "I don't think we noticed it last time, but there's no guarantee of time passing the same here as in any given world we visit. We're talking about different universes with different sets of parameters for the string harmonics, and there are about ten to the five-hundred and twelfth different possible combin—"

"Right, right, remind me to never let you spend any more time with Gate." I cut the Blue Bomber off with a short chop of my hand. "Weird time lapses aside, I think there's a problem with that reploid's MDI programming. The first time he dropped us in a universe ten years too late, and the second time he put us on the wrong side of the continent. Then, instead of running around saving people from meteors like the first time, we ended up getting attacked and had to fight other humans to protect ourselves. It was ridiculous! If Gate hadn't pulled us out early we'd either be dead or murderers by now!"

I didn't realize it until the end, but my voice had gotten louder with each sentence. I had nearly stood up out of my seat again. Crossing my arms, I leaned back in the chair and scowled at nothing. After a second of silence, Signas probed me further with a question.

"'Other' humans?"

"Yessir, the MDIs rendered us in human bodies in that universe." X answered his question in a low tone. "We were vulnerable, even though we had armor and weapons, and it affected our personalities a little bit. Gate didn't warn us that might happen. I don't think he knows it can. I don't think he pulled us out early, either; the MDIs did that on their own, and we don't know why at this point."

Signas shook his head. Wait, where was his military cap? I wasn't used to seeing that reploid's black-haired head all bare like that.

"I don't understand this wormhole science Gate is doing. It's impossible for anyone but him to analyze, apparently, and the rest of our R&D department is getting a little jealous. But that's a matter for another day." The former private investigator gave me the evil eye. "I expect a complete written report from each of you by tomorrow at 900 hours. That means both of you, Commander Zero."

What, doesn't he like the reports I hand in? Or has he figured out that I make the secretaries do them?

Darn.

Either way, Signas had more or less dismissed us, and we stood to leave. Before he turned to go, X raised a questioning finger, a look of worry on his face.

"What about Gate? Will he get a copy of the reports?"

"Once I've had a look at them." Signas nodded. "Any important technical information will get to him afterwards."

The Blue Bomber's look of worry intensified, but he remained silent. I stepped in and put a hand on his shoulder to stop his usual passive-aggressive antics.

"Signas, general, you know how X doesn't always say everything he's thinking? This is one of those times. Why don't you ask the guy what's got him so worried."

It wasn't really a question, and I gave the general a look that told him not to disagree. Call me an insubordinate, arrogant son-of-a-gun, but last time I saw that expression on X like that I lost—never mind what I lost. It's not important now.

Signas returned my commanding glare for a full two seconds before looking down. He turned his glance to X and nodded. "Please."

The Blue Bomber sighed. "I don't think Gate operates well with that kind of top-down information sharing. I think it offends him when the data for his experiments has to come through another source, especially when he knows us personally."

Hey, speak for yourself, I thought. Maybe X decided to make him his buddy, but I don't see one good reason to trust a brainiac that even other scientists don't like. Gate gave me the creeps. I had to bite my tongue to keep from interrupting.

"May I share my report and Zero's with him directly?" X finished his thought with a determined stare in Signas' direction. Phew, I was off the hook. No interviews from creepy scientist reploids for me.

The general considered X's statements with a finger on his lips. His eyes shifted to me. "I consider your mission information strictly need-to-know, Commanders. But if Dr. Gate needs to know that badly, I suppose I'll allow it."

X nodded with an expression of relief, gave his thanks like Signas had done him a personal favor, and turned to leave. I was about to follow him when the general gave me one last comment to think about.

"Of course, I can't have only X give Gate his report. Zero, make sure you spend at least an hour going over what happened for him. It's for science."

I turned and gave the dark-armored reploid a dirty look. His expression was deadpan with the tiniest glitter in one eye.

Dirty son-of-a-gun knows how to get revenge after all.

X0X0X

Zero stormed out of the office in a huff. I wondered why he didn't like Gate. Other than the obvious reasons, anyway.

Regardless, life rolled on. I had enough Commanding to do that my afternoon happily disappeared into a series of training meetings, inspections, and other fun peacetime work. These boring days between wars are the best—no one dies, no one gets hurt, and no one has to say goodbye to an old friend thanks to the Maverick virus. We had almost fifteen years of peacetime after the first war, before Sigma came back to life and started twisting normal reploids into monsters again.

Before I knew it the sun had gone down outside the complex, leaving nothing but white artificial lighting down the chrome-coated hallways. Most of the humans leave to stay with their families at night, and the reploids have their own places to go in the evening.

1900 hours approached as inexorably as the dawn. I looked forward to it with a swirl of conflicting emotions: hope that we'd find a way to help Zero, anxiety about talking to Alia in private, tingling pleasure at the same idea, fear that she'd try to involve Lifesaver directly, and finally, guilt.

Guilt. I didn't have to wonder why Dr. Light gave me this latest upgrade. I knew well enough. And still, with all my knowledge and all my trust in him, I let fear hold me back from doing what he wanted me to do.

I signed off on a couple more papers and returned two or three more salutes before HQ's operations closed down for the day. Consulting my internal clock, I read the time at 1840 hours, just enough time to go back and change out of my armor before Alia arrived.

Dressed in a new pair of blue jeans and my favorite white t-shirt with a yellow duck on it, I sat down at my desk and fiddled with the mission report I'd written earlier. I had trouble focusing on the words. My mind spawned visions of Alia laughing at me or turning from me in disgust, and to my shame, I even had trouble thinking of Zero's problems for a minute.

Alia's gentle triple tap on the door roused me from my daydreams. Knots twisting in my stomach, I rose from my desk and called her in.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: In which Alia learns a secret.**

__/adamupgrade/readme..txt__

_Son, in light of the startling changes this upgrade will bring upon you, I feel it necessary to include a personal message along with the usual technical notes. _

_ I am, as always, tremendously proud of you and your outstanding love for the people around you, reploid and human. I still envisage a day when humans and man-made intelligences can live together in peace and equality. The Maverick virus may put off the realization of that dream for awhile longer, but I remain confident we can overcome every obstacle even if I personally don't live to see the day._

_ Yes, X, even I cannot put off death forever. Recent events have warned me that I might not have long to finish your design. To that end, the upgrade contained in my next capsule will crown and complete the creation of intelligent robots as a life-form all their own. _

_ I'm sorry that I couldn't make these changes more gradual; if not for the risks and limitations that accompany me in my present form I would most certainly find a way to introduce you to the Adam upgrade more slowly. I will have to rely on your indomitable will and your love for your friends to master the powerful new feelings awakening inside you. I warn you that in the first few months they will be even more intense for you than for a human adolescent because of the suddenness of the transition. Despite all the bumps along the road, however, I know you will find the power to control your instincts and use them for good. _

_You are my son. Always remember that. _

_/endfile_

Even after reading that file, unanswered questions had bothered me. What recent events did my father mean? The war with Repliforce? Or something else? What could possibly hurt my father, who had the power to travel from one of his capsules to another apparently at will?

In short, the readme file for the upgrade had opened up almost as many questions as it answered. Now, as I waited for Alia to come into my office, I fought internally over what to do. Did I dare go forward with what Dr. Light expected of me, and if so, how?

Silent in spite of the hopes and doubts that tormented me, I waited patiently as Alia turned the doorknob and stepped inside.

AXAXA

I knocked gently on Commander X's door, listening for any movement inside. My heart jumped when I heard the scrape of his chair on the floor and his high tenor voice called me in. I'd had a hard time getting a hold of the Commander recently, and in the face of my outburst earlier, I half-expected him to avoid me again. Thinking of that, I grimaced and rested one hand behind my head in a self-conscious gesture.

Fortunately, though, he had answered after all. Dressed in my nice pink shorts, white v-neck blouse, and a strained smile, I opened the door and stepped inside. X stood waiting for me behind his desk. As usual, his incredible office took a moment for me to absorb; I can't come into this place without feeling a little awe at the man who works here.

First, the bookshelves. X reads more widely and deeply than anyone I've met. Scientific journals, philosophic treatises, mystery novels, literature in many different languages, religious texts, instructional books for children and more line the bookcase by the desk. I don't understand why he reads all those things, but I try to at least follow along when he talks to me. In the hard sciences, in my specialties of programming and reploid design, I can just about hold a conversation with him, and I cling to that when he's making connections and describing patterns outside of my field.

His appreciation for art is ahead of mine, too. The copy of Van Gogh's "Starry Night" hangs on the wall opposite a Japanese bonsai tree and its cute little sunlamp. Once, in thanks for an incredible rescue of their president, the Chinese government gave him an ancient Hung dynasty vase for safekeeping; first he put it in the corner next to the bonsai tree, and then later he moved it to stand sentinel by the door to his quarters in the back. It joined the bust of Caesar in that respect. Meanwhile, a piece of modern art dangled precariously from the ceiling, inviting the eyes upward into a hypnotic swirl of dark and shaded colors. I can't put my finger on why he values it all; it's like I'm missing something inside that he's always had.

As for the desk, its polished wood bulk took up nearly half the room. Ordinarily I'd call that a tremendous waste of space, but he keeps the surface of it covered with the most fascinating array of science toys. He switches them out occasionally, to keep people interested; my favorites are the Van de Graff dust cannon and the oscilloscope that measures heart rate and breathing instead of voltages. As usual, I only barely resisted the impulse to take them apart and figure out how they work.

More permanent than the toys and placed with more care than his own nameplate, X kept a couple of pictures on a corner of the desk by themselves. In the first, an old photo of Dr. Thomas Light, the grandfather of modern robotics and architect of the first true artificial intelligence smiled back at us from an old-fasioned cherrywood frame. X has told me before how he treasures his relationship with his father.

Next to the old photo sits a holocube with a huge memory file of pictures. Its three-dimensional images cycle from one to the next every few seconds, displaying a continuous parade of the grateful living: Humans, reploids, men, women and children, working class and intellectuals of every race and design looked up with tender expressions to the person taking the photo. When I asked X about the holocube during the third war, years ago, he told me with a happy smile that those were all the people he's saved. I've never seen the holocube repeat a picture in all the time I've spent here.

Megaman X, savior of a world on the brink of destruction. I don't know how he survives that kind of pressure. How can anyone?

My eyes returned to the man at the center of it all. Stronger than a human, all-around smarter than a reploid, and kinder than anyone I've ever met; I could never stand to let him down. My eyebrows quirked as I took in his tense expression and, more importantly, his clothes.

He was wearing the shirt with the yellow duck on it.

Maverick hunters made the connection between the yellow duck shirt and X's stress level long before I arrived on base. Legend has it he wore it under his armor his first day in the field. I personally doubt that, but he put it on every night during the weeks before Repliforce rebelled for good. Why did he wear it tonight? To help him deal with me?

Closing the office door behind me, I looked off to the side with an apologetic frown. "Commander. I'm sorry I got upset at you earlier today. Have you been to see Lifesaver yet?"

I met his gaze, and the sorrowful cast of the clear green eyes told me "no" long before he shook his head. "I'm sorry, but Lifesaver can't help me with this one. It's more complicated than that."

"Then get a specialist!" I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, willing myself to control my temper. At least he had finally admitted to having a problem. "We can't afford to lose you, X. I can't let you ignore your own needs like this."

He stared at me a long moment before answering. I sensed a lot going on behind his carefully neutral expression, but that's another thing about X: if he really doesn't want me to know what he's thinking, I can't. He turns into a brick wall. What was he hiding back there?

"Alia, I promise we'll talk about my issues later. For now, please come back here and sit down. We need to focus on Zero. All right?"

I nodded carefully, watching his eyes as I came back to sit in one of the chairs behind his desk. A certain amount of relief followed the move; X in an office chair in front of me makes me much less nervous than X standing behind his imposing wooden desk. "Thank you, sir. What do you think is wrong with him? He won't go on patrol or train his unit anymore, no matter what General Signas says or does. What's his problem?"

"I don't know for sure yet." X shook his head. "I've seen Zero torn to pieces, twice, and he never gave up in spite of all that. Fighting Iris on the final weapon…I think that hurt him worse than anything. Maybe we can help him work through it if we can get him talking, but he won't sit still long enough to listen."

I pondered the problem for a moment and sighed. Zero's impossible for me to quantify. "So basically, we have to lock him in a room and hold him down until he talks? We'd still have to take away his Z-Saber to keep him from cutting a way out."

I stopped when I saw X's expression. His eyes shone and his processors must have been running at maximum speed. My head shook left to right without my conscious control.

"No. Commander X, you can't seriously be considering that. Can you imagine what he might do if we forced him to talk?"

X smiled and cocked his head, still thinking. I pursed my lips at his reaction and ticked off items on my fingers.

"First, there's taking away his Z-Saber. That's impossible without killing him. Second, he'll still have his Z-Buster, and that's powerful enough to blow holes in most normal walls. Third, we've seen him tear apart metal floors and ceilings with his bare hands before now. Finally, he has teleport codes for nearly anywhere on Earth.

"That leaves three choices for places to confine him. One, a training room on base. Half of them are under renovations and the other half are booked twenty-four seven. Two, the brig. That's still full with criminals from the war. Other places with strong walls and teleport jamming are either too dangerous or too sensitive to use. Even training rooms and prisons are iffy places to talk anyway. Commander, this is a terrible idea."

"You said anywhere on Earth." X's eyes flashed and he scribbled furiously on the notepad on his desk. "Alia, how would you like to take a long-distance teleport with the two of us?"

I regarded him carefully. "What do you mean by long-distance?"

"About an atom's width in eleven-dimensional space." He laughed and stood, laying the paper down on the desk. "You're a genius, Alia. We'll get Gate and sort out the particulars tomorrow. Wonderful work."

XAXAX

With that, I threw an arm around the blonde's shoulders and ushered her towards the door to the hall. "I'm really tired now, so I'd better take a sleep cycle, but we can talk more in the morning, okay? I just got a new wafflemaker, so it'll be great."

I had her almost to the door before Alia resisted my gentle pressure. The blonde dug in her heels and pushed back, forcing me to a halt. Her unarmored body felt soft and strong and warm. "Wait. X, you told me we'd talk about your issues now. You aren't going to go back on that, are you?"

"Of course not." I shifted my weight and jerked the reploid's supple body off balance. As she started to flail for support, the strength gone from her stance, I pivoted and whirled the blonde around to throw her out the door. "Whoops."

She caught herself by the doorframe and held on like a starfish. "Commander, what are you doing?"

Her stance had too little strength to resist another push. I lowered my shoulders and prepared to bull rush her into the hallway. "I'll see you in the morning."

By the end of that statement, I needed to have shoved her out the door and rebounded back in order to close it. I hadn't. Why not?

My bull rush came a moment too late. Alia turned reflexively as I made contact. One hand caught on my shoulder, her feet tangled up in mine, and we went down in a confusion of arms and legs. I had to close my legs and throw myself to the side to avoid an unintentional knee to the crotch; the new equipment is incredibly sensitive. As we hit the ground, I shifted to get the reploid in an armlock.

"X, what are you doing? Are you going crazy?" Alia twisted to avoid my move and tried kicking to get away. I pinned her anyway, threw us into a roll, and kicked off her midsection to throw the blonde across the hall. "Why—oof."

Before she reached the apex of her flight I switched to Bubble Crab's weapon and fired off a fat pile of metal-oil hybrid bubbles. The blonde fell into them like a mattress, breaking her fall; the bubbles burst underneath her with a high-pitched series of pings before she smacked prone on her back. I still don't know how I ever used those as an offensive weapon. While Alia recovered her breath, I got to my feet with a sigh.

"What a mess. I'm sorry, Alia, it looks like I got a little carried away." I walked towards her in as nonthreatening a way as possible. "Here, let me help you up."

Refusing to meet my gaze, Alia glared at my chest instead. Her skin and clothes were wet with the inflammable oil of Bubble Crab's signature weapon, and my coolant pump pounded with the sight. Her expression fell.

"If you were testing me, I know I failed. I didn't expect an attack from you."

I forced a grin. At the time, I even avoided wondering why I hadn't forced the blonde out of my office more efficiently from the beginning. Since then I've come to terms with the fact that I didn't really want Alia to leave.

In the moment, I leaned down, held out my hand to help her to her feet, and spouted the first excuse for my behavior that came to mind. "Well, you know, be ready for anything, like Zero says. We're going to take good care of him tomorrow."

All reploids have their limits, not just physically, but mentally. With the right intonations, emphasis, and body language I can trick even Alia or Lifesaver into forgetting the previous line of a conversation. If I had delivered those last two sentences of dialogue without a flaw, Alia might have gone a full three minutes before realizing how I had dodged talking about my problems.

I messed up the delivery. Alia grabbed my hand and heaved herself up at me with knee leading. "You're not getting off that easy!"

Her knee struck my chest hard enough to bruise bones and blast the breath from my lungs; my autonomic systems told me to curl up and protect my internals from another blow. I ignored them. Instead, I brought my arms down around my opponent and heaved her to the side, using the blonde's own momentum to thwart her attempt at a grapple. My feet worked furiously to pivot with the motion and I sucked in another breath to speak. "Then take this!"

She scrabbled for a hold on my arms, but my martial arts experience gave me too much of an edge. I flung the reploid down the hallway like a shot put at the Reploid Olympics.

I don't normally do this kind of thing. General Signas frowns on people fighting outside the training rooms, and besides a certain red-armored blond, the rest of the Maverick Hunter Commanders don't pride themselves on personally ambushing their rookies to "keep them in shape." Fortunately, we had plenty of empty hallway to work with tonight, and no apparent onlookers. I don't need people thinking Commander X considers himself above Signas' rules. If even robots won't follow rules, people like Alia will never have peace from fighting.

Alia twisted in the air and landed on her feet with sinuous grace. Her designer built her to last, which in our world means surviving the occasional scrap with Mavericks. Beyond that, we had trained her for combat as a Hunter. Maybe no one meant for her to face off against Maverick Hunter X, but as her commander I had full confidence in the blonde's fighting ability.

Dear, sweet goodness, though. Watching her move like that now made me need a quick ice bath.

My mind continued processing the battle as a sort of sideline. I released my weapons charge an instant before Alia converted her hand to the Alia Buster, and metal-oil bubbles swirled up in front of me just in time to refract her electromagnetic pulse into a wash of static. The reploid's expression of determination never wavered.

"Don't underestimate me, Commander!" She drew a phaser pistol from a hidden sheath in her clothes and started gunning down my bubble shield. My buster was already moving, firing a fountain of Bubble Crab bubbles into the air to keep an EMP-blocking screen between the two of us. The shimmering spheres blurred the details of the reploid's curvy frame, but in reality, that simply removed a lot of the distractions from fighting her. I fired another spray of bubbles and waited for the blonde's next move.

AXAXA

I gritted my teeth at how fast he fired those bubbles. By aiming upwards at a 45° degree angle and keeping up a continuous spray, X kept a wall of protection from my weapons constantly floating down in front of him. I could barely detect his yellow-duck-shirted frame behind the interference.

That may have been for the best, though. I didn't want to risk looking in his eyes right then.

Frowning, I glanced up at the metal ceiling and dashed forwards with an EMP charge at the ready. The wall of bubbles didn't extend all the way to the top of our battlefield; a properly aimed pulse had the potential to partially reflect off the ceiling and bounce down onto the Commander's unprotected head. I raised my Alia Buster and let off a maximum-power blast, enough to fry a mechaniloid or knock out an unarmored reploid for long enough to drag him into custody. If the Commander meant to go all Zero and ambush me, I wasn't about to disappoint him by going down easy.

The fount of bubbles cut off the instant I released the EMP. Feet working hard to avoid slipping on the oily surface of the floor, I wove my way through the still-falling screen of bubbles to where X lay comatose on the hard ceramic tile.

His yellow duck shirt lay on him in disarray from the fall, and the man's unconscious, innocent expression gave me a pang of remorse. Ignoring my suddenly scrambled feelings, I lifted the Alia Buster and fired on the Commander's apparently insensible form. Zero's played possum-bot one too many times for his best friend to catch me with the same trick.

X's body vanished the instant I fired.

Or rather, his Split Mushroom-style electrical clone disappeared when my EMP disrupted it.

Looking back on what happened, why was I surprised that he outwitted me? I'm a reploid—a replicated android. Deep down, all sensible reploids know we're only cheap knockoffs of the original. I suspect that man knows us better than we know ourselves. Light knows, I'd give up every last dollar of research funding to understand him in return.

In the instant before I overcame the shock, a heavy metal claw caught me by the shoulder and jerked me off my feet. X had used the bubble screen to hide just inside his office, then ambushed me with the Strike Chain, a weapon he liberated from a plant-based Maverick in the second war. I flailed helplessly against the weapon's pull; in spite of anything I could do, though, the armored chain dragged me across the slippery floor toward its owner.

He had me. I managed to reorient myself and fire a low-power pulse from the Alia Buster, but X tugged on the chain at just the wrong moment, and the EMP careened uselessly down the hallway instead of hitting its duckshirted target. I threw a punch when he got in close but he grabbed my wrist and waist and threw me to the floor of his office, quickly following to pin me. Still, at least I avoided meeting his gaze.

I struggled another moment, and the man's hold simply tightened further. I wanted to curse but he doesn't like cursing, and besides, that's not polite to do in front of a superior officer, even if they have gone all Zero on you. Finally, almost unavoidably with his face right in front of me, my eyes locked on the Commander's.

That ended the battle. Only a Maverick can keep fighting after looking into those powerful eyes, filled with that incomprehensible emotion. My body went slack as I stared up at him.

He kept his teenager-looking face tense and unreadable. What does he think about when he looks like that at me? Does Commander X think of me as a friend, or just another spotter? I thought I knew the answer a month ago, but the way he had been acting made me wonder. What made him attack me like this when he's been avoiding the sight of me for weeks? Why here, why now?

I opened my mouth to ask, but the man shook his head and turned away. I remained silent and he read my mind. What else can I call it? He answered my thoughts before I gave them a voice.

"I'm sorry for the confusion, Alia. I haven't been myself these last few weeks." He rolled off me and sat with his back to his desk. His eyes strayed slowly up to mine, then back to the floor. "I've been trying to come to terms with myself. Ordinary humans get years to deal with this; but I guess I've never been ordinary."

I sat up and stared at him wordlessly, my forehead wrinkling in a pained effort to understand. He looked at me, and his expression of fear mixed with something stronger I didn't recognize.

"I love you, Alia. I want to be yours in a way I have no experience explaining."

My jaw slackened as the thought came across. I tried to keep a level tone. "Love? You mean…romantically? Like a human?"

The eagerness in his eyes faltered, and the lines of anxiety deepened on his expression, but the man determinedly kept my gaze. "Yes."

For several seconds I barely saw him as possibilities flashed before my mind. "Dr. Light's last upgrade? He added sexual capability?"

X nodded. "He wants me to bring back a friend next time I visit one of his capsules. He says my upgrade isn't complete until he can give someone else the counterpart upgrade. I think…"

He trailed off, and my mind raced. Certain physical details I had noticed during the fight made much more sense now. I had to restrain myself from lunging forward and ripping off his clothes to see for myself. How had anyone made this kind of technological advancement, even the ghost of Dr. Light? Reploid—reploid reproduction?

While my eyes trailed down his frame, X looked away and sat there in silence. Abruptly he stood and stepped past me to close the door. His tone changed. "I didn't tell anyone before because I didn't know what to do. I'd still prefer to keep it quiet for now, until I know for sure what I am going to do."

He glanced at me, and finally I came out of my reverie enough to notice the expression on his face. With a sudden stab of guilt I jumped to my feet.

XAXAX

I closed the door with a gentle motion. Glancing at Alia, I guessed she hadn't heard the quiet noise from the hall outside. My own audio sensors had barely picked it up.

The intrusion of an eavesdropper threw my own perspective into sharp relief. Alia had no way to understand what I meant; I had no right to ask her for a response, certainly not so soon. How did Dr. Light expect me to deal with this new upgrade? How did he expect me to justify an attraction to someone who couldn't begin to understand it?

Alia got to her feet with a start, lips parted to speak but unable to find words. I smiled a little and shrugged. "Would you like to sing some karaoke? I have my machine all set up in the back."

She stared at me for another second, her expression astounded, and then nodded mutely. I led her back into my quarters and wandered over to the karaoke machine I keep on the mock stage I built. MHHQ Maintenance moved me into this office with its noise-absorbent walls when I first made the rank of Captain. To this day, I suspect they promoted me just to get my "danged noise machine" into a soundproofed room.

My hands went to the controls for the machine. Alia likes to sing, but she doesn't think she's very good, and so she won't do it in any kind of public setting. I had started looking down the list of songs for one she liked when the reploid's hand touched my shoulder.

I turned in response, and found her regarding me with a determined frown. Before I knew what to do, she put her hands on my cheeks and kissed me. Possibilities surged through my brain like molten honey. I swooned.

She couldn't—why would she—how?

At that moment she kissed me again, and a realization overrode my questions as surely as Alia had overridden my objections.

Babies! We're gonna have babies!

AXAXA

X's legs nearly gave out under him. Shifting his weight onto me to keep him upright, I changed my grip and kissed him again. Certainly I couldn't fail my friend when he most needed my help.

I resolved then to go through with Dr. Light's plan for his son. I owed it to myself, to science, and to Dr. Light who had made our creation possible.

Most of all, though, I decided to do it for Megaman X.

GAGAG

Madness.

I remained carefully silent, my back flat to the wall, as the android rose and closed the door to his office from the inside. His voice came clearly through the centimeters of wood.

"I didn't tell anyone before because I didn't know what to do. I'd still prefer to keep it quiet for now, until I know for sure what I am going to do."

So that's how it was? How childish.

His conversation with the spotter Alia trailed off into his quarters. Having originally come to see X about the earlier experiment and without the intention of eavesdropping, I lacked any surveillance equipment, which the android must have guessed. He had apparently detected my presence and chose not to reveal me.

Fool. If he only knew how much Signas' funding for my research had furthered my plans; how his and Zero's travel through subspace had weakened the lining of subspace around me, the fulcrum point for the technology; how close I was to becoming a gateway in more than name—his trivial mind would quail at the darkness lurking at the fringes of this world.

I turned and stepped quietly back down the hallway. I saw little reason to listen further anyway. Alia had made her choice to serve the Maverick Hunters; as for X, why bother with him and his pretensions of humanity? My own plans certainly included no such idle foolishness.

I chuckled, and the voice from subspace breathed sweet comfort to my mind. No, no such foolishness at all.


	3. Chapter 3

****_Author's note: I've been negligent these last few chapters in recognizing my beta reader's incredible help. MungoJerry beta-reads all of my fanfictions these days; a great writer in her own right, she's also been an indispensable source of inspiration and correction for this story and others. Please visit her profile and take a look at her stories if you have a spare moment. _

_Thanks for reading, and please enjoy! _

**Chapter 3: In which an inspiration changes the world.**

"I'll tell you later, my acrylic's getting cold."

"'…owned!' Best frag grenade moment ever."

"More eggs, Eddy!"

"When d'ya think it'll come through?"

"What now, did we run out of graphene?"

"Naw, no way. Put your money on another blaster, he'll never get it fixed."

"No flavor in these things. Ugh. Got any carbides?"

The babble of the cafeteria spilled out into the hallway like a noisome cloud, joined by the off-white broadband emissions of that demon called the Sun. Blasted reploids. Blasted windows. Blasted hunger.

That was the core of my frustration. The Voice I found in subspace had promised me kingdoms and armies of researchers in exchange for opening the gate to subspace, but had yet to do so much as cure the common hunger despite all my progress. My feet carried me reluctantly towards the wretched room we call a commissary.

And why do they call it that? Because reploids insist on calling their features after human names. We take in needed materials, we eliminate degraded parts, and the unwashed masses insist on calling it "digestive" processes. Ridiculous. I wished for the 45,709th time for a way to legally secede from the reploid race.

I turned the corner with a disdainful twirl of my pure white lab coat. The chaos of the room burst upon me in its full, wretched force: reploids talked, laughed, and did whatever else they pleased while satisfying their nutritional needs. Morning brought in one set, lunch another, dinner yet another round of them, drifting in and out and passing needless gossip from table to table. All this license and liberty, yet Signas refuses my most reasoned requests for meals by delivery. Repulsive.

"Well, if it isn't Young Mister Gate! What's on the brain today? Summore gravitons in a magnetic well?" Eddy laughed a guffawing laugh and waved his ladle. Droplets of nutrient mixture flew off in all directions, including onto the battered, mismatched armor plating that marked the reploid as another of the Hunters' broken, outdated, bloodthirsty barbarians. "You're just about gonna die if you keep up thinkin' that hard!"

I approached him calmly despite his blasphemy against science. One day, all people will acknowledge the truth. Raising the bowl from my most recent meal, I stared the fool in the eye and requested, "Iron, magnesium, and trace amounts of heavy water, please. Thank you."

He grinned. "Whut, ya mean soup? Here."

The reploid slopped a heaping ladleful into my dish. It contained all manner of unnecessary elements, and he'd failed to add the heavy water. I turned away without a word and walked to the so-called salad bar.

So-called. I refuse to name pyrhhonic zirconium crystals "lettuce." However, the so-called salad bar includes heavy water as an element of the so-called vinaigrette dressing, so I dumped a healthy amount in my bowl and turned to leave the room.

Before I reached the threshold, the oddest feeling of quantum rattling betook my body. A chill ran through my internals; an intense buzzing sensation followed, like the static from a nearby teleportation, but all through my body instead of merely on my communications link. My bowl shivered and disappeared.

Before I had time to lament the loss, the bowl and its contents appeared in my hands anew. I stood and stared at it for a second before remembering my surroundings. Raising my head, I left the evil cafeteria as slowly as my trembling frame permitted. Only once my laboratory door slid shut behind me did I look at the bowl again.

When look I did, the sight set my scientific reasoning spinning. A baked, glazed clay bowl carved with primitive insignia sat in my hands; steam rose from the sour, acidic fluid within. I spotted chunks of minerals and flakes of metal still dissolving in the foamy solution. Traces of blackish mist curled around the bowl as if caressing its glossy surface. My salival glands activated in preparation to consume it.

Needless to say, I ignored the worthless autonomic response and dug up my analytical gear instead. The mess and chaos of my laboratory no longer disgruntled me; Signas' idiotic policies no longer meant a thing. Finally, after years of labor, rejection by the scientific community, lack of funding, Maverick interference, disregard by humans and reploids alike, and months of time at worthless Maverick Hunter Headquarters, my persistence and brilliance had finally paid off.

I took careful readings of the exotic radiation emanating from the bowl of nutrients. Without a doubt, it originated from the universe X and Zero had recently visited; just as those robotic barbarians had transformed into human warriors there, the soup from there had transformed into reploid nutrients here. My "breakfast" had almost as certainly turned into human food upon transference there. Mass-energy, momentum, form, and particle composition all had the potential to change in a subspace interaction, but more abstract qualities remained intact; all had occurred just as I predicted.

In short, after only a week of reploid testing, my theory had proven itself to the utmost in the closed-loop transmission of that soup. My person had acted as the center of a spontaneous transference event mediated by the contortion of spacetime itself. I, as the anchor point of X and Zero's expeditions across the universes, had become a literal gate between worlds. And if I had functioned as a gate for only one random event so far, then to mechanize and weaponize the process I needed only take a few simple steps—starting with a new form of Multi-Dimensional Interface.

The voice from the outside laughed and spoke in the words of its ancient, growling language. Its volume grew and expanded to fill the corners furthest of my mind; equipment shook as my hands began to tremble with the rising intensity of the event. I felt power crackling through my neural pathways, whispering secrets, murmuring plans, filling me with the knowledge necessary to _one us together as join_.

It had spoken to me often in the years since I presented my Grand Unification Theory to the Department of Defense. They had laughed me out of the building, but the Voice from subspace had comforted me, stroked my broken pride, and shown me the wondrous truths behind my infant theory. In my brilliance I had stumbled upon the secrets_ to dream up from waking, and _reach the treasure buried under the stars. _I had madnessed already into descent _for him;_ only now I straggled to tools the needed build._

_Yes, ah. And the subject tests._ _Needed I more to send_.

A knock at the door startled me from the scintillating beauty of my inspiration. Enraged, I prepared to destroy the offender with my mind before remembering the fragility of my delicate body and chose to hide instead. Under ordinary circumstances, concealing myself has worked many times and should have worked again. Ordinary reploids have the common decency to respect a man's privacy.

Unfortunately, Zero, that befouled red fiend, cares nothing for common decency.

AGAGA

I wiped some reddish waffle crumbs off my blouse as we walked. Adding a little powdered iron oxide had drastically increased the utility of the breakfast, although I wondered why he had kept trying to massage my shoulders while we cooked. Then I frowned as those thoughts gave way to worries about our destination.

"Commander…are you sure this is a good idea?"

X smiled at me without slowing his pace. We had almost reached Gate's laboratory. "Yep. Don't worry so much, Alia. We're going to be fine. Soon Zero will be fine too."

Despite everything, I smiled and felt myself relax a little. X has that effect on people.

"All right, if you're completely sure." I glanced up to the LED screens above the doors on this hall. X greeted a couple of reploids as we passed them, and finally I saw the sign marked "Dr. Gate" in red letters. "Here it is. X, he doesn't want visitors; he's got his sign in red. See?"

X glanced briefly at the sign and frowned. "Odd. He usually doesn't bother with that. Hmm…"

I glanced at my watch. Reploids need timepieces about as much as we need acne medication, which is to say that we don't, but my creator Dr. Solinar gave me a gold-alloy wristwatch as a present a few years ago and I wear it for his sake. I guessed it was possible X would give me presents like this now that I was his girlfriend, and in that case, maybe I could convince him to get me lab equipment instead.

Anyway, the watch's dials pointed to 11:03 AM, well into Gate's official workday. My commander tapped gently at the door to his lab. "Dr. Gate, are you in there?"

No one answered. He looked at me, shrugged, and smiled sadly. "I guess he's not interested in company. I worry about him, too, sometimes. Wh—oh."

X's eyes focused on something behind my back, and I turned around to see Zero coming around the corner. The beam swordsman stopped, stared at us, and then approached with a scowl.

"I'm not going to talk science with him. Gate's going to send me somewhere and none of you are going to stop me."

Apparently ignoring that rush of a statement, X stepped back to allow his friend to shoulder past. "It's locked."

Zero glanced up at the red sign, scowled more, and punched in the door like a cheap piece of tin. "Lock shmock. I'm Zero."

The robot sauntered through the opening without another word. His heavy crimson boots treaded down the ruined door like a welcome mat. X walked up and stood at the threshold like a ghost; I stood close and looked over his shoulder. At a time like this, I didn't know whether to do girlfriend things to him or not, so I settled for a safe option and put my hand on his shoulder. Maybe it didn't even make a difference through his armor, or maybe it was just the thought that counted, but he reached up and held gently onto my fingers.

Zero muscled his way through the debris "Gate! I got a job for you. Get out here. Gate!"

X glanced back at me and followed Zero in.

XAXAX

I picked my way carefully through Gate's laboratory. Zero strode ahead of me. After a quick look around the central room, he made tracks for the researcher's private sleeping chamber. I stopped and made a more careful scan of the laboratory before going on. That was the only reason I sensed Gate hiding in one of his storage cabinets.

His breathing gave him away. Androids and reploids don't have to breathe all the time, but it helps with a few of our processes; without training, it's easy to forget you're doing it and ruin a good hiding spot. Even as the thought crossed my mind, he remembered to hold his breath and Zero came back into the room.

"He's not back here. Dang slacker, skipping out on the job." My red-armored friend stomped back in, saw my expression, and opened his mouth before I signaled for silence. He followed my glance to the cabinet and growled. "I'm trying back again later. You can do what you want."

He stomped loudly towards the door, banged his foot on the leg of a workbench, and abruptly sprang across the room to Gate's hiding place. The researcher didn't have time to sneeze before the android had ripped off the cabinet door and hauled him out by his collar. As Zero glared intently into his face, I thought I saw a flash of hatred interrupt the fear in Gate's expression. If Zero noticed it, he didn't react.

"You're the biggest creeper I've had to touch in two weeks, so I'll make this short. You're gonna send me out to some universe where I don't have to see anyone I know. I don't care what it looks like and I don't want to come back until I say so. Just send me somewhere with lots of bad guys and leave me there. You got that? I want out of here!"

0X0X0

His face twitched while I waited for a response. I glared into his cowardly expression for what felt like a minute before X's voice broke in on the stare-down.

"Zero, I think you need to put him down."

I didn't turn away from Gate's quivering face. "Don't interrupt, X. I'm going to pummel him if he doesn't let me go."

"He's not going to do anything unless you put him down. It's going to be all right, Zero." I heard shuffling noises as the reploid moved in on my position.

I snarled and tossed the researcher to the floor, then turned on X. "Don't you see? I can't be around the rest of you freak shows anymore! I'm going to hurt someone unless I get out of here! Make him help me leave!"

He shook his head. "You don't have to hurt anyone if you don't want to, Zero. Control your emotions or—"

"They're already controlling me! Dang it all, X, why do you think I killed Iris?" I threw out my hands. "I couldn't save her because I was afraid of dying! I'm a loose cannon who'll take out whoever he needs to when death is on the line!"

"That's not true, Zero. No one's braver in a fight than you are." The lines on X's face hardened. "Everyone knows you did what you did to save the Earth. It had nothing to do with your personal safety and you know it."

"Fine then!" I cut the volume, dropping my voice to a deadly hiss. "I want to go because I'm tired of being around all you idiots. I can't stand people who'll sit around at a desk all day while Sigma comes back from the dead again. You can fix your problems without me."

"That's not why you want to leave either. If you really thought we had a chance of finding Sigma's hiding place, you'd have been out looking for it since the war ended. Why are you really trying to leave, Zero?"

The room stood silent for a moment while X tried to break me with his gaze. I swear, he's like a basilisk when it comes to staring people down.

…don't ask me how I know what a basilisk is. That was a very bad day.

"You don't understand. You can't understand, X." I wrenched my gaze away from his and grabbed up the creepy egghead reploid again, bringing his face within inches of mine. "There's no life for me here anymore! Gate, send me away before I break you in half."

The Blue Bomber's voice broke in again. "Don't do this, Zero. I won't allow it."

G0G0G

"You can't stop me. Last warning, you pointy-faced egghead."

I felt the fibers in my collar stretch and break one by one. Zero looked at me and I confess my short life flashed before my eyes.

Dark rage boiled out of the voice from subspace. It wanted to reach out and strangle the meatheaded android's neck. It wanted to devour his soul and command his body as cannon fodder in an army of the undead. I, however, wanted to live through the rest of the day, so I abandoned the useless fantasies the voice presented and concentrated on a way to avoid death by the Red Ripper's freakishly powerful hands. The sound of my own voice surprised me.

"I'll send you anywhere you want. Let me go and I can do whatever you need me to do. Just let me go."

Having satisfied his urge to see me grovel pathetically for my life, Zero dropped me for the second time and turned on his companion. "I'm going to go through with this. You can't stop me, X."

The blue-armored android shook his head. "Running away from your problems won't solve anything. If Iris' death hurt you that badly, you need to stay here so your other friends can help you get over it."

Zero snarled again. The sound made me tremble all the harder. Scrambling away on my hands and knees, shuffling through equipment broken in the invasion of my laboratory, my artificial frame pulsed with a terrible burning sensation and I knew true hatred. The voice reminded me of Zero's desires, and my mind conceived of a dark, evil thought, like a germ from the pits of Hades. In time, that germ from the darkness would hatch a cockatrice to loose our fury on an unsuspecting world.

Soon, no one would ever invade Dr. Gate's marvelous laboratory again.

AGAGA

Zero snarled again, but weaker than before. His hands clenched and unclenched. For the sixth time in four minutes, I thought for sure he'd draw his saber. X stood in front of him like a cliffside holding back the waves, quiet and resolute. I felt sad for Zero, but he needed to calm down and talk to us instead of going off on his own like this.

Without another word, he stomped out of the room in a huff. X looked from him to Gate and then back to me, then left to chase down Zero. I considered going with him, but the sight of Gate getting up off the floor of his Zero-wrecked laboratory made me hesitate. Someone had to clean up the Red Ripper's mess.

"I'm sorry this happened, Dr. Gate. If it makes you feel any better, Zero's wrecked my work once or twice too. He's like a natural disaster sometimes."

Gate didn't reply. He simply looked around at his damaged and disordered equipment, picked up an odd-looking device, and glanced up at me with an expression that reminded me of how I look at bugs. I pursed my lips and continued.

"I can help you clean up and repair some things if you want. I'm familiar with a lot of this machinery from my own work."

His expression never changed. "Dr. Alia, I have work to do. Please go."

I blinked. "You don't want any help at all? Are you sure?"

Again, that expression scarcely changed, but suddenly I felt uncomfortable. I took a step back, and another one. Words didn't come to me. On his end, Gate didn't say anything more until I had nearly reached the door.

"It's going to be a good year for science, Dr. Alia. Once I've opened the way to subspace for good, our projects will just get better and better."

The researcher smiled. Stuttering out a goodbye, I tripped over the wreckage of the door and stumbled ungracefully from the room. He simply stood there and watched me until I had gone.

Walking away down the hall, I shook my head. Gate always struck me as a little odd, but never crazy. I decided the creepy effect must have come from my own imagination.

I needed to report Gate to the psych ward back then. Back then, we had the power to stop all this from happening. Now it's too late.

Now Zero and X can never come back.


	4. Chapter 4

_Author's note: in response to the questions of an anonymous reviewer, I'll clarify a few details._

_1) The events of this story mostly take place after the fourth Maverick war, which _the game Mega Man X4 _depicts in heavily stylized form. Note that Zero still has fresh psychological wounds from "retiring" Iris; by any later in the series, I would expect him to have dealt with those issues one way or the other. _

_2) X and Zero's interdimensional slides have had a side effect that only Dr. Gate noticed or expected. I will point you to the 3rd to last paragraph in Chapter 2 for an explanation Dr. Gate gives of this idea. Perhaps more usefully, I've also added a bit from Gate's perspective to the first chapter, which will help explain his initial plan and give a sense of continuity regarding his actions. I apologize for any confusion; while I typically have them figured out more or less from the beginning, I'm not always good at representing my villains' evil plots in an intelligible way. Sorry._

_Feel free to post suggestions for improvement in the reviews. If you have questions for me personally, please log in and post a signed review so I can reply to you personally. I won't post any more general responses in authors' notes; I prefer to write my work such that it speaks for itself._

_Thank you for reading, and please enjoy._

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 4: In which a reploid chooses her fate.<strong>

Waves washed up endlessly against the rocky shoreline, a soothing, rhythmic chorus of toneless fuzz. My body ached, its energies finally exhausted, and the sounds of nature continued on around me uninterrupted.

Why did I trust a woman in the first place? Desperation? Need?

I made such a stupid mistake. Everyone turns bad in the end—everyone. I have no special someone waiting out there for me, human or reploid.

Soft sea breezes caressed my cracked red armor; fire and fury had only died down once my energy reserves ran low. I lay on my back on the sandy pebbles. My eyes counted the stars that wheeled 'round the sky, and my ears listened idly to the sound of beach rock cracking as it cooled. My hands ached from pounding the scenery after my weapons ran out of juice. If a Maverick found me like this I'd die.

Slowly, ever so slowly, I felt my consciousness drift away into the dark. X's voice impinged quietly on my mind until I fell out of range. Real or imaginary? More like both.

Half-dreams and visions blended seamlessly to nightmares. Phantasms of Iris returned to taunt me again, but my soul gave back nothing but sadness; without self-hate and shame to fuel them anymore, the visions faded like shadows in the night.

Why did I trust her to begin with?

Why did I suddenly feel so thirsty?

X0X0X

_"My eyes scanned the battlefield for survivors. Radio static from the distant lightning cannons flooded every com channel—all the time now, the smell of ozone tinged the air. Wails of suffering from the wounded carried far across the cracked desert hardpan._

_"'When will it end, Tubois? Is this really the kind of revolution we all wanted?' _

_"My comrade shifted his cigar to the side of his mouth. "'No, but it's the kind we get. The world's gone crazy and we can't do nothin' to change that. Sometimes, kid, I think it don't matter whether we fight or not anymo—'"_

A low moan woke me from the book in my hands. Alia turned slightly in her sleep, fingers twitching. Resting in a chair by her rejeuv pod, I stared into her beautiful face in the heat-light of the infrared spectrum. The young reploid shifted position slightly and relaxed once again.

I left my finger between the pages of the book and moved to brush her hair back from her eyes. She was beautiful, even asleep and with her hair a mess, even without light of the visible spectrum to give her face its color and shine. I can't imagine loving anyone as much as her. Is that wrong, to care so much for someone who doesn't understand what love means?

The blond's fist abruptly flew to smash me in the nose. I barely dodged far enough to avoid a stunning blow, and her other fist followed in time to land a grazing blow on my chin. My backward momentum carried me out of the chair and away from the rejeuv pod. Alia sprang out of sleep with a violent expression.

"Perverts! Get out of my…" She paused, blinking, and looked down at me. All at once the reploid's hands covered her mouth in horror and she climbed out of bed.

"Commander! I'm sorry, I just reacted—I lived with humans once —are you hurt? Oh, I'm sorry!"

I laughed and rubbed my nose. "You can't hurt me that easy. Try it again with a beam saber and you'd do some damage."

She knelt down beside me, concern still on her face. "What's wrong, though? Why did you come here to wake me? Are you feeling all right?"

I laughed again. "No, I just wanted to see you. I've been here since about three o'clock. It's almost dawn now."

Alia stared at me uncomprehendingly for a second, then blinked again and hugged me. "I'm sorry, I forgot we were boyfriend and girlfriend for a second. Did you want to do something after all?"

I shook my head, cheeks flushing pink at the suggestion. "No, Alia, it's not like that. Listen, I just finished talking with Zero a few hours ago. We didn't need to worry about forcing him to open up after all. He's going to be all right."

"Oh. That's good. That's really good." The blond shook her head and yawned. "Systems still getting up to speed. I'm always like this in the morning. You're not tired at all?"

"I slept last night. I don't need to rest every day unless I'm using more power than this. Zero won't need to recharge for long before he's up again either, by the way." I stood up, bringing Alia with me. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine. Your nose…" She grabbed my face and peered closely. "Hold it, I can't see the damage properly in infrared. Lights on. Oh, good. You'll be fine."

Alia's room lighting clicked on the moment she spoke the word, giving the scientist a better look at my face. She smiled, then stopped and blinked. "Zero's all right, just like that? How long did you two talk?"

I considered that for a moment. "Once I caught him, we only spoke for about half an hour. I think the chase used up most of his stored energy."

She shook her head in wonderment. "Chase? In other words, you had to run him down. Huh. At least he's okay now."

"I really think he will be. He's never very specific about what's bothering him, but I could tell he had a lot of guilt over killing Iris and the Colonel. Based on how quickly he wore out, I'm guessing he hasn't eaten or slept properly for weeks; he didn't stand a chance when we traded fire with our busters."

Alia's eyes widened at this last statement. I nodded at her reaction and went on. "I know it sounds strange, but I think Zero needed to be defeated as much or more than he needed to talk. He needs a reminder now and then that he's not indestructible, that he can't go around acting like the whole world's on his shoulders. I also get the feeling that depriving his body and burning out his energy is part of his way of getting catharsis."

"Catharsis?" Alia's eyebrows squinched together; she looked embarrassed at not knowing the word. I nodded again.

"Catharsis, an emotional release or a purging of psychological distress. In Zero's case, he tends to take too much on himself and blame himself too much for what happens, and he needed to let go of that shame. Colonel and Iris did what they did knowing full well how he'd have to respond."

That last sentence came out a little harder than I meant as I forced my voice to stay calm. My mind's eye filled with visions of the young, proud Repliforce, and I took a moment to choke back tears. For their sake, I don't cry in front of the people that depend on me, not even Alia.

She waited silently for me to speak, her blue eyes dropping uncomfortably to the floor. Alia has never personally killed another reploid. Acting as a spotter, or an operator, isn't the same. I think she wonders if she would have the strength to do what Zero did.

When the moment had passed, I coerced a smile onto my face and changed the subject.

"Anyway, he's grieving normally now. Although, I don't think that particular stretch of coastline will ever be the same."

Alia smiled but didn't manage a laugh. I opened my mouth to speak when my communicator buzzed.

"A call at this time of morning?" A shiver cut through my body at the implications. I prepared to open a connection. "That's either really bad, or…hm. Hello, this is X."

"Commander." A girl's monotone voice crackled in. "This is Cataract. We found another capsule."

SXSXS

Sniff. "Mmmm." Sip. "Mmmmmmm."

Steam floated gently off the surface of my cup of boric acid. It was good and strong, just the way a Maverick Hunter General needs it. I walked down the hall towards Commander Ragnarok's quarters, cuppa' joe in one hand and fresh new assignment in the other. He'd enjoy the break from checking up on the satellite network anyway.

Schwoop. Bam!

Crash, tinkle-tinkle-tinkle.

"Signas! Do you know what this means? She loves me! Oh…whoops."

X looked down my front. Boric acid dripped slowly down the hard black chestplate, steam floating briefly from its surface before the liquid cooled. My fingers still clutched the mug's little broken handle. Standing behind her commander, Lieutenant Alia watched the pool of boric acid spread from around the broken ceramic fragments lying at my feet. The creamy white lump of titanium oxide had fallen on the toe of my boot. I wanted to cry.

Instead, I sighed. "You're excited this morning, X. Karaoke night again?"

"Um, no sir. I have a reproductive system now and I want Alia to have one too so Dr. Light's capsule is up in the Tetons and I'm going to Wyoming to have him give her some organs. Sorry about the mess, sir. Permission to take her with me?"

I could still taste it in my mouth. It was just enough to remind me how delicious it would have been. "Yes, Commander X. Whatever you feel necessary. Don't worry about my morning cuppa joe. By all means, go on your way."

He dashed off. Alia shouted, "Thank you, sir. It's for science," ripped off the smartest salute I'd seen since her last request for funds, and followed. I bent down to collect the broken fragments of my teacup and stopped.

"…organs?"

ASASA

Endless vistas spread out to our left, a steeply angled mountain slope. Ahead, a trail led windingly upwards. At the top of that trail stood a goal I didn't yet understand.

In hindsight, I'm glad I didn't. I might not have gone.

"And then he says, 'The situation should now be improved, X.' And then it's over. Weird dream, huh?"

X led me by the hand up the trail, talking up a storm. He gets a little like this when he's nervous. Thanks to regulations and some trouble with the teleporters, it had taken us a full half hour to gear up and set out for the capsule, and X hadn't stopped talking for more than a minute during that time. Simply keeping up with the constant stream of dialogue demanded a significant chunk of my processing power.

Then again, it isn't always like that. Commander X doesn't chatter at all during the most stressful times. When lives or livelihoods are at risk, he gets quiet and starts thinking so hard I swear I could hear his processors heating up. X is a complicated man.

"—Alia? What are you thinking about?" His voice woke me from my reverie. I jerked back to the situation with a start.

"Oh. I'm sorry. Com—um, X, are you sure Dr. Light will show up if I'm there with you? I mean, his capsules only ever activate for you. Shouldn't I stay out of sight at first?"

X blinked and scratched his helmeted head. We both had on our best armor in case Mavericks made a sudden appearance; they've done it plenty of times before. With that in mind, a squad from the 17th Elites had set up a perimeter around the mountain, allowing us to hike the final few hundred yards to the peak alone. HQ dropped us as close as possible, but apparently the capsule lay in a spot of teleportation "dead zone." I didn't mind much, though. The walk gave me a chance to think through more potential problems.

"Another thing—X, how sure are you that Dr. Light designed the upgrade for me in the first place? Do you think he programmed you to go after me specifically, and if he didn't, how would he know what kind of specs to use in the designs? I know it's your father we're talking about, but he's still only hu—well, mostly human, I think. Isn't he?"

X's face scrunched up more and more with each sentence. He looked deep in thought. I waited for him to speak for a good thirty seconds, and in that time his expression didn't change a bit. Finally he broke the silence.

"Hmm. Do you think we'll need a formal marriage? If it comes to that, I think we should hit Vegas for it. They get a lot of crazies through there anyway, so no one will notice."

I dropped my face into my palm and sighed. My commander nodded sagely.

"No, you're right. Dr. Light's word on it is formal enough for me. He did invent me."

I shook my head in scientific despair. "Sir—"

X squeezed my hand. "Don't call me that, please. As far as the technical problems go, I think my dad has them under control. Don't worry so much."

Despite myself, I felt my concerns lighten their grip around my chest, and I sighed with relief. Freezing wind whipped playfully at my hair underneath the helmet. X gestured at the scene around us, and I couldn't help but follow his glance around.

Wyoming's rugged mountains spread all around us. Near the peak of the tallest of the range, we had a beautiful view of everything for miles. The sight kept me interested for a full 1.2 seconds. It was a nice view.

X's eyes turned to mine, his green gaze searching me out. I stood and held his stare, wondering what gears turned behind his synthetic skin.

XAXAX

After the briefest moment considering the awe-inspiring vista, Alia returned my gaze with a contented look. Her expression reflected nothing more than a passing satisfaction at the sight.

Her response, or lack thereof, didn't exactly surprise me. From the moment shortly after awakening when I realized how far the science of robotics had fallen, I knew I wouldn't have the resources to make machines with workings as complicated as mine. Dr. Cain and his fellows possessed neither the know-how nor the tools to replicate me fully. They struggled just to understand what my father had invented—even with the conscious help of the invention.

Modern technical shortcomings aside, robots of my complexity can't be trusted straight out of the box. Zero's own episode on awakening proved that. When Dr. Cain and I made the first reploids, we intentionally limited their neural design to keep from accidentally creating a homicidal maniac. It worked; even improperly programmed reploids rarely turned dangerous without an agent like the Maverick Virus to replace their original programming. At the same time, my reploid friends like Alia didn't have the capacity to feel awestruck at the beauty of the Earth.

Thinking about it, I wondered—not for the first time—how much she'd understand romance or childbearing, even with the physical capability to produce children. If my father had thought of it, and he probably had, then he'd do his best to reprogram her for the task. That thought came with a tangy mixture of both hope and fear.

"It's all right." I turned my eyes away from the blonde and tried to hide my disappointment by starting up the trail again. Since I still had her hand, Alia came with me. "Maybe after this, Dr. Light will finally help me more with reploid neural circuitry. Then you'll be able to understand a little better."

I spoke as cheerfully as I knew how. When I looked back, though, Alia had the most downcast expression I'd seen on her since the worst parts of the war. Her head had literally bent down to stare at the trail. I opened my mouth to speak, but the noise of footsteps other than our own stopped me.

"Hey, it's Megaman X! Cool!"

"That is pretty cool."

"Hello!"

"Who's the girl reploid?"

I looked up to see a few men coming down the path. That was right; Cataract had mentioned a group of hikers up at the peak. They definitely belonged to the same family. I recognized the common physical features first, but the real giveaway was the feeling they gave off; their aura said "we're all family, and if that wasn't enough to be proud of, we just climbed a mountain." I pegged the one with gray hairs as the father and all three much younger men as his sons, ranged in age from sixteen to twenty-two.

"Hey." The youngest of the group, the first to have spoken, grinned at me and held his hand up for a high-five. "Megaman X. Rock on. You're here for the capsule up on top, right?"

I put up my hand and completed the high-five. "Yep. It still looks good, right?"

"You bet it does. Dad won't even let me touch it."

One of the older boys laughed and frazzled his brother's hair. "Owen, that's all right. Why don't you let him on through."

Following common hiking etiquette, they clambered up onto the rocks above the path to let us by. Alia rested her hand behind her head with nervousness and led the way forward. "Um, thanks. Be careful getting down the mountain."

The dad smiled. "We'll be fine. See ya."

I smiled back and followed Alia up the trail, and the men went on their way. Before long their voices faded from hearing. From the sounds of it, the youngest had gotten the most excited about it, but all the men were happy to see us. Even if my squad had spoiled the surprise by making contact before we showed up, it's not every day you get to see a world hero heading up the mountain you've just topped. They wouldn't forget their hiking trip anytime soon.

I squinted into the white sky as we rounded a bend; at this elevation, the sun beamed at us like it wanted a high-five too. I smirked. That boy had still been smiling brighter. I like that part of being famous; I can make people happy just by showing up sometimes. With that thought, I strode boldly to the place where no android had gone before.

Married life.

AXAXA

With a determined look on his face, X led me up the last steeply sloping part of the trail and onto the peak of the mountain. The morning sun beamed weakly down on this peak, and icy winds whipped wildly 'round our metal-armored bodies. In anticipation of the big event, I all but forgot how bad it had felt to disappoint X. What had I missed in that landscape?

That train of thought ended as soon as we made the peak. In fact, my thought cut off completely as soon as I saw the wonder before me. There it stood, the least-explained of all Dr. Light's amazing technologies: the upgrade capsule.

My video capture method automatically switched to total observation mode; standing in the presence of a live upgrade capsule for the first time, I wanted to take in every detail possible. The upgrade capsules housed the living consciousness of Dr. Light. They materialized system-wide upgrades directly and flawlessly into X's massively complicated systems. While live, they stood immune to any form of hacking known to man. And each capsule, after delivering its payload into Commander Megaman X's body, heated to the melting point of steel and fused the incredibly complex network of circuitry inside into a useless lump of silicon. Magnificent, inexplicable, and utterly impossible to analyze. This one looked more heavily armored than ordinary.

X spoke as he approached the capsule. As if in a trance, I heard his voice, but the words meant nothing to me. I could analyze everything later. "Hello, Father."

The capsule flared into life, and my heart leapt into my throat. My eyes traced the edges of the holographic image that I had only ever seen on a video screen. On the bottom and top of the capsule, the projection points for Dr. Light's hologram glowed with a blue-white light. The effect suggested he had used a slight variation in standard 3D imaging technology.

The hologram flickered and pixilated as the roboticist spoke. Okay, so maybe it was a slight fault in standard 3D imaging. "Megaman X, how you've grown since I last saw you. How does it feel, being a man?"

X rolled his eyes. "It feels a lot like having extra baggage that constantly gets in the way."

"Good, you already understand marriage. Oh wait, you meant—ahem. How embarrassing." Dr. Light guffawed and turned to me. "Oh, Alia, I'm only kidding. X, she can tell when I'm kidding, right?"

His son glanced over at me and sighed. "Usually, but she gets in a kind of trance sometimes. I think she's just trying to divert brain functions into video capture, so she can study it all later."

The roboticist nodded and curled a finger against his lips in thought. "Hmm, yes, I should have expected that. Based on my observations, the field of sensory technology has advanced much more quickly than processing speed. Still, we'll need her to talk with us before we go installing any upgrades."

X's eyes flicked from me to his father and narrowed. "Of course. We wouldn't want to impose adolescence on her without her knowledge, after all. Who does that?"

Dr. Light laughed. "Who indeed. Goodness, look at that scientifically fascinating event!"

XAXAX

He pointed back over Alia's shoulder, and the reploid swiveled instinctively to look. When she turned back to us, her eyes had started to unglaze and her mouth had puckered up in a frown. Coming out of a trance can be a little jarring for her. Despite her obvious frustration, though, I couldn't help wanting to laugh at the cuteness of her expression.

"Now, Alia, what has X told you about your visit to me today? Anything of significance?" My father gave the young blonde a kind look.

She nodded and stumbled over a greeting. "Yeumthankyo. Um. Yes, thank you very much Dr. Light. He told me you'd install some new equipment to match what X got a few weeks ago. Is that right?"

I nodded and turned, smiling, to my father. When I saw his expression, the humor of the moment disappeared entirely. "What is it?"

A cloud had passed across the roboticist's face. "Megaman X, there's a lot more to the Eve upgrade than a few extra piece of equipment. I built you with this eventual idea in mind; with Alia, the process will be much more—involved."

I stared, feeling my coolant run cold. My father took in a deep breath and sighed.

"Based on her specs, I'll have to perform an overhaul on her entire body to make it compatible with the new technology. Your recent upgrade hurt somewhat, correct?"

A frown solidified on my face as his line of reasoning clicked with me. "And I was designed to receive that upgrade from the start, wasn't I? The sex equipment was the only part you had to add. Which means—"

"The mild discomfort you felt will be nothing in comparison to what Alia will endure."

A moment passed in silence as we all let that idea settle on us. I looked over to my blonde reploid friend; she regarded me seriously in return as I spoke. "You don't have to do this."

She nodded, and something in her expression confused me. Turning to Dr. Light, she nodded again. "I signed up with the Hunters knowing I might die. A few moments of physical pain will be nothing in comparison, Dr. Light. I'm prepared to do whatever's necessary to make Megaman X happy."

My father's expression didn't change. "I'm glad to hear that, young lady. However, I still haven't told you everything."

I wondered for a moment, and even as he opened his mouth to speak again, it all came clear to me. Her—

"You reploid brain is not advanced enough to handle romantic relationships, let alone parenting. I've developed a procedure for rebuilding your neural network with complexity on the same order as X's."

Her face scrunched up at him. "How is that even possible?"

My father got that hesitant look he gets when he's trying to think down to someone else's level. "Besides implementing the physical redesign, this capsule will install the newest, best version of X's neural hardware. From there, a program of my own design will remap your personality onto the new neural hardware, Alia. That's the simple version."

"What's the complicated version?" I controlled my voice to avoid either shouting or quavering.

My father shook his head. "I know you don't want to hear this, X, but the fact is I don't know how well the program will work. It's not the kind of procedure I can test extensively, and even if it does work, the strain of all the upgrades combined may burn Alia out in the process."

He was right. It wasn't what I wanted to hear.

LXLXL

I was right. It wasn't what he wanted to hear.

"Father, we can't do this to her. Alia, I'm sorry, but there's no way I can put you through this operation."

I half-expected his presumption to offend her, but instead Alia looked up at me as if confused. I folded my arms and frowned at X. He takes too much on himself and then feels personally responsible for everything that happens. My son needed to learn to stop acting like he had the world on his shoulders.

"You know that I will always respect your freedom to choose your path, my son. However, this is not solely your decision to make."

"I led Alia this far thinking you had everything under control, Dad. I won't have her die because I wanted a companion."

Whom to obey? The young blonde reploid looked from my son to me again, her brain trying to process the correct answer. If X told her to do it, she'd jump in the capsule in a heartbeat. She probably still wanted to, for her own reasons, but his resistance set up a dilemma she found hard to resolve. Alia had been designed as a devoted scientist, not a quick-thinking moralist. I cleared my throat and pulled out my last resort. If X's command held her back, then concern for X would level the playing field and let her choose for herself.

I only wish this didn't feel so much like manipulating a child.

"Alia, please don't let my son go through this life alone."

X's eyes widened in shock, then narrowed in unhappy determination. The whine of his buster broke the silence on the windy peak. "I won't fail to protect my friends. Not even against you, Father."

For the third time, Alia looked to X, then to myself. I watched as determination crystallized in her own eyes. She turned to face her commander and threw her arms around him.

"It's okay, X. It's going to be okay." Her voice caught. "I don't want you to worry."

I sighed again as X powered down, clutching her tightly. "That's right. It's going to be okay. Once we leave here, everything's going to go back to normal."

Alia simply nodded. The poor girl probably never had a heart for deception. Fortunately, my son made the critical error of believing that meant she had no power to deceive.

ALALA

He never even saw it coming. My Alia Buster armed and discharged directly into the back of X's helmeted head, instantly scrambling his neural net into total unconsciousness. The sudden weight as he slumped over nearly toppled me, but I regained my balance and carefully laid my commander down on the rock of the mountain's top. Dr. Light spoke to me in a measured voice.

"Alia, when you step into this capsule, the walls will close and there will be no turning back. Either you will become X's wife and the new frontier of robotics, or the Eve upgrade will permanently destroy your brain. Rebirth or death. Do you understand?"

"I've made my choice. I'm going to do this for X." I turned and approached the upgrade capsule. Dr. Light regarded me with an anxious expression before his hologram disappeared.

"Good luck, my child. I pray we will meet again."


	5. Chapter 5

_Author's note: Thanks _to my wife for her help as a constant source of inspiration, and thanks _again to MungoJerry for her tireless beta reading in the face of schoolwork. I also appreciate those who have taken a few minutes to give thoughtful reviews of the story so far. Your comments factor heavily in the continually woven fabric of Mega Man X and Zero's adventures._

_Enjoy!_

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter five: In which the chess game begins.<strong>

_A little while earlier…_

0

Fill—stomach—now.

My eyes cracked open with this single, solitary thought in mind. Fluids—solids—anything to put in my belly.

Apparently, running across endless steppes and mountains, fighting off X's kidnapping attempts, and hiding on seafloors all after refusing food and drink for a week has actual side effects. Who knew? Point being, I needed rations like Sigma needed a new wig.

Stumbling from the sleep capsule, I ran a self-analysis for nutritional needs but gave up at about the 97th item. If someone asked me how I felt, I'd punch him and say:

"Urrrghckl—"

Strangled coughing choked off my attempt at speech. Camels had started to wander across the back of my throat. Dunes blocked my air passage. Extended metaphors heartlessly maimed the remainders of my good humor.

Suddenly, my eyes spotted paradise. The heavens had opened! Food showered down like a glorious raining waterfall of goodness!

I actually saw the remains of the weird human meal that Iris had left for me that one time. She really had been a few relays short of a neural network. But never mind that; I had found food!

…no. No, actually I had found a bunch of crumbs and scraps. (Yeah, I had already eaten it. Being with Iris made me do a lot of weird things.) Delirious with hunger, I dove for the only remaining source of sustenance: a carton of milk, completely untouched. It hadn't even been opened!

I tore open the top of the carton and instantly regretted it. Chunky liquid oozed from the ragged edge of the tear like pus from a sore.

I hurled the decomposing dairy at the wall and gritted my teeth with fury. Somewhere, someone had better be having a worse day than me.

L0L0L

Ionized argon swum around the reploid's body as matter streamed into her. She had started off standing, but by this point—I monitored her carefully as the updates installed.

Widening the hips didn't take long, but adding the extra equipment inside had proven trickier than I liked. I needed Alia conscious and aware for this first part so I could use the internal feedback as added guidance; unfortunately, her pain responses rendered any internal work extremely difficult. I needed to finish installing the new nerve centers before I fried the old ones with stimulation overload.

The time passed intolerably slowly. Putting in the last set of physical updates burned the surrounding tissue into a barely solid mass of alloys. Hopefully she'd make a full recovery on her own; to that purpose, I had already infected her nanobot repair network with a retrovirus that replaced her old blueprints with a copy of the new. I finished up the last piece of work in the torso and moved on to the brain.

Here the work became much more difficult. As gently as possible, I sent the young reploid into a coma and extracted her consciousness into a separate neural drive inside the capsule. With that done, I conducted a tiny amount of new matter through her skull and painstakingly reorganized the existing hardware into a radical new set of patterns. Most I took from X's original blueprints. Some of them I had made especially for Alia in the intervening years.

Believe me, I didn't want to do it like this. I wanted to wait longer, test the updates more thoroughly, and figure out a scheme to install them in stages. I wanted to make it a happy adventure for them. I never wanted Alia to suffer this way, and certainly not risk her life, merely to provide my son with an Eve to his Adam. That could have waited.

Unfortunately, and despite my best efforts, events had begun to spin out of control. The threat of Evil Energy that Rockman and Duo faced in their time had returned, and this time, even my detection systems couldn't pinpoint the source. I only knew that more and more traces of the energy surrounded Maverick Hunters Headquarters, and that when Rockman faced this threat years ago, it compromised his then state-of-the-art security systems before Duo intervened. If Megaman X became infected with Evil Energy without a system in place for finding out and curing him, then my son could become the single greatest threat to humanity ever created. I refused to let that happen.

Backhacking from Alia's systems tore at my senses like a primal scream, jarring me painfully from my work. My qubit computerized consciousness responded automatically with a series of firewalls that allowed me time to think. I needed it; at this stage Alia's brain shouldn't have had the integrity to count past two, let alone launch a counterattack against me. Moments later, with a strategy prepared, I let down the firewalls and went on the attack.

The last robot apocalypse had taken my lab, my children, and in the end, my chance to die as a normal human. If my creation became the second apocalypse, I would have no choice but to intervene and use my knowledge to help them destroy him. Then I would have to watch another of my children die.

So, desperately, I worked to finish the upgrade.

XLXLX

Alia's screams greeted me painfully on my return to consciousness. Distantly, as my memories of the situation fully caught up with me, I realized those screams meant she still lived. Then I heard the noises of my faithful squad firing on the capsule.

"Rumble Rhino, can't you get up here any faster?" Sprint Eagle's voice crackled through on the comlink. An all-but-unintelligible grind of a voice came through in response.

I lifted my head to see no less than three squad members firing on the sealed upgrade capsule. Dents and pockmarks covered its metal plated surface; every few seconds its protective forcefield flared up again, only to dissolve under a barrage from Cataract's long-range energy weapons. In the intervals created by her shots, Sprint Eagle and Rockstar laid down a barrage of short-range brute force attacks in an effort to crack open the capsule's armor.

I struggled slowly to my feet as my limbs spasmed with random twitches. Alia's cries from inside, twisted and distorted from the capsule's strange geometry, grew weaker and weaker. Humming and sizzling from inside the machine drowned out what remained. How could my father do such a thing?

My weapons charged with an ascending whine. Rockstar looked over his shoulder with a flick of his greasy black hair and saw me on my feet. "Commander! Alia's trapped in this capsule and we're trying to get her out. What can we do?"

I stood. My eyes scanned the capsule for weak points, but a thought came to me and I shook my head. "Stand down, Hunters! We're sitting this one out."

Rockstar and Sprint Eagle stopped and stared. Cataract, set up on a ridge on a nearby peak, spoke to us over the comlink as soon as the shock had worn off. Her voice was as bland and monotone as ever. "Commander, please explain."

I powered down my buster. "I know what you're thinking, but that's one of Dr. Light's capsules, not a trap or a fake; it's still busy operating on her. We can't save her now if she's going to die. Stopping the transformation midway would probably only make things worse, which is assuming we can pierce the armor without breaking the inside and killing her directly."

As if on cue, the capsule's protective force field blazed back into life. Alia's weakening whimpers made my heart tremble, but I stood strong for the sake of my troops. We felt the rocks shudder ever so slightly as Rumble Rhino's heavy hoofsteps carried him up the final leg of the trail. Listening to him, my mind latched hold on what we could do. I took a deep breath and spoke aloud as well as over the comm.

"Sprint Eagle, when that capsule opens you'll grab Alia and rush her down to the teleport point for medical evac. Cataract, contact HQ and set up that teleport immediately. Rockstar, you and I will follow Eagle down and cover him in case enemies show up. Rumble Rhino will cover us from here on the peak until HQ has beamed myself and Alia in, then you'll all cover him until he reaches the teleport point himself. Rumble, don't you dare take the fast way down again. We do not need another rockslide on our hands."

I looked back to the capsule, where my wife's whimpering had abruptly ceased. My forceful orders did little to hide my helplessness in the face of her suffering. With no other recourse, I prayed she had the strength to hold on.

0X0X0

Slowly, the other fighter's hands lost the strength to hold on. Curl Foxstar snarled and bared her vicious fangs at me; I took this as a request to twist her grip harder. The fox reploid's superheated claws slipped nerveless off my arm.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the time to tango with the little fire-user all day. Resonance and Cull Fang had already recovered and armed their weapons, which meant I had all of two seconds to move or get my overheated armor shattered and my poor metalloid flesh cut to ribbons. I pulled Curl into an improvised headlock and broke her neck with a sudden twist of my arms. For my next trick, I spun her away one-handed between me and Res, then knocked away Cull's aerial spinscythe with a beam saber quick draw.

"Hey! You said you wouldn't use the beam saber!" Resonance fired at me again as Curl collapsed. I dodged and countered with a charged shot from my Z-buster.

"I said I wouldn't cut anyone with it. But I will shoot you to death." I knocked down a cunning return strike from the spinscythe and grabbed onto the chain that Cull Fang used to swing them around. "Or hey, can I use these?"

"N-No! Get lost!" The jackal reploid tried to yank the weapon out of my grasp. Weak! I neatly sidestepped another shot from Resonance—seriously, was he even trying?—and heaved on the chain.

"Gotta put your back into it!" The weapon's handle jerked out of Cull's hands and snapped across the arena towards Resonance, who flinched as it came within feet of his face.

Cull darted towards me and drew his sidearm. "****, I'll get you Red Demon!"

"Good use of invective!" I shouted and flicked the head of the spinscythe around me. The danged thing nicked me on its way past and flew wild, too far from Resonance to scare him again, but fortunately I didn't have the same problem with the weapon's other end. As a sonic blast cracked my torso armor, I flicked the chain out and smacked Cull Fang right in the kisser. His head snapped back with a gratifying crunch. "But you could use more practice."

To my immense satisfaction, Cull refused to drop from the strike, but veered sideways and fired wild at me while his sight cleared up again. The attacks put pressure on me to keep dodging or blocking while Resonance lined up a kill shot. "Nice teamwork."

What can I say? Some days, I'm just proud to be a commander. I'd really have to work to stay alive this time.

Dropping the spinscythe gave my buster a clear view of Resonance. We fired at the same time, which meant his sonic attack met my plasma in mid-air and burst it in a fantastic explosion. The sheer intensity of the light blinded him while I looked away.

Almost at the same moment, my Z-Saber flicked out and deflected one of Cull Fang's wild shots right back at him. The clever reploid flung an arm out to absorb the hit but failed to anticipate my immediate follow-up move: a full-power body check.

I don't normally do the body slam thing. A lot of combat reploids are designed like wrecking balls to begin with; worse, some Mavericks have a funny way of decorating themselves with spikes and crap. Resonance himself had a built-in skin defense that delivered a nasty shock to anyone who tried grabbing him.

Cull Jackal didn't, though. I lit up my dash jets and came down on the man like a ton of bricks. My heavily armored frame slammed the smaller fighter to the ground and bounced his head off the reinforced concrete floor. Again, showing incredible fortitude, Cull shook off the hit and went for my throat with his mouthful of sparkly glassteel dentures. Those edges didn't feel too friendly on the skin, let me tell you. Before he clamped down for a death grip I head-bashed the Hunter in the forehead and rolled us over to make him take the next shot from Resonance.

Except he wasn't there. I shifted Cull off of me and jumped to my feet, glancing around, but the sonic reploid had disappeared. Nothing but scorched walls and floors surrounded me in all directions. Suddenly, he materialized a few feet in front of me with an apologetic frown.

"Sorry, Commander, I had somebody signal me in the capsule. Hey, you killed him already!"

"Yeah." I glanced back at Jackal. Funny enough, I had crushed in the front part of his skull with that head-butt. "You wanna die?"

He shivered. "No. I'll surrender."

I shook my head and blew his brains out. Geez, noobs.

The sound of his collapsing body faded out before I finished sighing. I found myself lying on my back in my rec pod, with Cull Jackal, Curl Foxstar, and Resonance all in various stages of getting out of theirs. "Cull, Curl, get out of here. Resonance, ATTEN-SHUN!"

I shouted it like a proper drill sergeant. My animal-type subordinates threw the door closed behind them, while Resonance hopped from his rec pod and snapped to attention. His armor's violent yellow-blue color scheme suddenly struck me as an incredibly offensive design.

"Corporal Resonance, you make me sick. Why did you even get assigned to this unit in the first place?"

His eyes stared straight forward and he spoke with the stiffest tone possible. "Lt. Major Spotlight felt my combat abilities were wasted as an operator, sir."

"You didn't answer the question, corporal. Try again. Why are you in my unit?"

He swallowed. "My old commander thought you'd be the best one to break me in as a combat Hunter, sir. You're the best Maverick Hunter Commander we've ever had."

"You worthless piece of garbage." I stopped for a second, skull tingling with a growing sense of malice. "No. I can't go insulting garbage that way. Garbage is useful. I've used garbage to blow stuff up before. You, now, I can't see you as more than five-weeks-gone milk. Fighters like you make me want to throw up. Do you know what about you makes me want to throw up, you worthless mass of protocheese?"

I swear he was sweating. Who designs reploids to sweat? "My bad aim and terrible combat ability, sir?"

"Don't try to score points with me, Gouda. Surrendering is one thing. I surrendered once, after they tore off both my arms and shot a hole through my self-detonation system. I can even condone surrendering if it means you get close enough to kill someone. But ditching your friends? No. You're gone. Make me happy and go step on a land mine. When you're done, pack your bags 'cause I'm sending you to the Arctic unit where you can learn how brittle your little details get at forty below. Understand?"

"B-but it was just training! I got a signal, it was important!"

I grinned nastily. "Just training? Is that it?"

I pulled the reploid's sidearm from its holster and pointed it between his eyes, which widened to the size of dinner plates. "Disarm me."

"Commander? What's going on?"

I clicked off the safety. "Disarm me, Corporal, or so help me Light I'll put you in a cheese factory as the milk churning machine."

Resonance's face went through a couple of expressions before landing on determination. Calling back to his textbook-perfect disarm training, the reploid incapacitated my arm and gained control of the weapon in two seconds flat. Then, just like they'd done in every single training session, he handed it back to me so we could practice again.

I took the pistol from him and fired an energy blast past his ear. Waste chemicals abruptly sprinkled the ground between his feet.

When the sadsack excuse for a reploid finally regained control of his tongue, not to mention his bladder, I cut him off with a chop of my hand. "Training stupid makes you fight stupid. When I practiced disarming my instructors, they practiced dodging. You just practiced ditching your team in the middle of a fight to the death with the most powerful machine ever made. Me. Get it?"

The reploid's face went slack, tensed up again, and cycled through a few more changes before I lost patience with his processing speed. I hitched the blast pistol on my belt and walked out of the room while he gibbered.

"My gun—"

Slam! went the door to the rec pod room behind me. "Noobs."

I walked about four steps down the hallway before another reploid ran straight into me. No one catches me flatfooted, not around here, so he bounced off and fell hard on his metal butt.

Poor idiot. Not everyone can walk around MHHQ like a boss.

He recovered in time to watch me walk around him, then jumped to his feet with a rattle and a clank. Rookie armor never fits just right; I hear it's something about cost-effectiveness and life expectancy ratios. It's the kind of stuff X doesn't like to hear about. Anyway, I turned to walk off.

"Commander Zero! Alia's in serious condition in the medical bay!" He scrambled to his feet and tried to grab my hand. This earned him a slap to the face and another visit to the floor.

"Never grab a superior officer, greenhorn. We've seen crappers like you visit Crazytown before, and we're not gonna line up for a sneak attack. You're lucky I didn't shoot you on the spot."

I turned to walk away again. The newbie soldier sputtered and choked behind me. "But—but your friend's in the medical bay!"

My long, blond hair swished back and forth as I sauntered off. "You said 'serious condition.' 'Serious' isn't 'critical.' I can get there by walking before she kicks the bucket."

I left the newbie sitting there watching me, at a loss, while parts of my insides curled in on themselves. Once I had gotten around the corner I took off at a noiseless run. I may not care about Alia too much but hell would break loose if X thought she died thanks to no one paying attention.

Another couple of reploids tried to stop me on the way. One freaky yellow-eyed one almost succeeded, until I stiffarmed her against the wall so all her sciencey papers flew loose.

"Zero! I hear Alia's been transformed in one of X's capsules!" Another officer shouted news at me. I waved at him and ran on by.

Great. Alia got an upgrade and someone shot her up or something on the way back. X was probably already at critical mass. They'd be picking pieces of the shooter out of the bedrock for the next 200 years.

"Hey, watch it you—"

Well, life is hard, and then you die. Then they bring you back, and life is hard again. I pictured the Blue Bomber going nuclear on a Maverick and smiled.

"Commander Zero, hey! Someone told me Commander X—"

That one dropped out of earshot before he finished. What, did he think I'd slow down?

"Zero, I hear X got himself a pe—"

And there went another one. It sounded like he really had something to say, too. I rounded a corner and flared up my dash jets to avoid slamming into Rumble Rhino. He ground out something nearly indecipherable while I escaped.

"Aaaliaokkkckup—"

A quick glance around revealed green ceramic-plated walls and pastel landscapes posing as art. I had officially entered the medical wing of the complex.

The nurses had an absolute fit the first time I ran in here, so naturally I never travel this wing at less than a brisk jog. Breaking the rules once in a while keeps people on their toes. I overheard snippets of conversation from the bystanders too oblivious to sense me coming.

"—said she had an hour to live—whoah!"

"—capsules, but that doesn't make any sense—"

"—burns all over her body! I—ack!"

"—time, brain was just a piece of slag. Hey, you!"

Robo-adrenaline started to race through my internals. None of that sounded good.

"No! I'm serious! At least 15% wider."

"That's why—Zero you **** ****-**** get out of my hospital!"

That last was Lifesaver's human partner, Leon Deckerd, the co-director of the medical labs. He had a PhD in such-and-such and answered any medical questions Lifesaver couldn't handle. He also cussed like a sailor. I never, ever let him look at me on an examination table.

"Zero you hopeless—"

"Code Zero, Code Zero! Door guards at attention!"

That always made me want to laugh. I made so much trouble in here, the medics had their own code for me. Based on the noise level and people going in and out, Operation Room 7 was the place to go to find Alia, so I put on a burst of speed and angled in towards the door.

Abruptly, and for no good reason I could think of, someone yanked the bones out of my body and pulverized my flesh into rubber Jell-O. Or, maybe, they yanked out all of my internal organs and punched a hole in my head. I couldn't really tell for sure; after the first nanosecond I blacked out and lost all memory of ever existing. Again.

And tomorrow I was going to try out X's new metalloid waffle maker. Darn it, life.

G0G0G

I wandered down the hallways aimlessly, feeling oddly disconnected from the events around me. Whether reploids spoke or simply walked on by, I had trouble noticing them through the mist in my brain.

New recruits, new recruits. Where might I find new recruits?

I had spent the previous day working on a revolutionary new version of the Multi-Dimensional Interface. Then, earlier this morning, the voice had come to give me more instructions, refining the settings on the machine, then telling me to find those unlikely to be missed and send them away to increase the power of my link to subspace. New recruits dropped out of the Hunters frequently, I recalled, and certainly I might escape notice for a time if I used one of them. (It _occur nevered_ to me to look outside the base.)

Time. Hahaha. A convenient abstraction for our universe, nothing more. Fully interpreted, the math of my Grand Unified Theory shows that crossing subspace fractures the dimensions and loops time around on itself like an eleven-dimensional Möbius strip. With a strong, stable link across the boundary between universes, anything becomes possible.

Now to make that possibility real! I looked around me, scanning for the new recruits. I knew the signs. Ill-fitting armor, expressions of nervousness and awe—

Nothing. Nothing at all. I had too much difficulty making sense of images. The aftereffects of communing with the voice can make ordinary function extraordinarily frustrating.

At this point I walked into a wall. I noticed this event only because of the sound of my newest Multi-Dimensional Interface dropping to the floor. The machine clattered angrily against shining metal tile and came to a sullen stop.

Panic eating at my brain, I dropped to my knees and grabbed the device in both hands. Shaped like a little metal box on the outside, the MDI's inner workings contained no less than four separate systems with vibrational fragility. I feared the worst, but concentrating closely on the little digital readout, I convinced myself that nothing had gone permanently wrong. Perhaps a change in the calibration. I tweaked a knob just so, and the numbers on the MDI's face shifted to more comfortable positions. I thought I heard it sigh.

"Excuse me, sir. Are you feeling normal?"

I looked up, and up, and saw a figure towering above me. The mist kept me from making out many details. "You_ very_ _are _tall."

Another tall figure behind him started to chuckle but snorted to a stop. The first figure folded its arms and looked down its nose at me. Dimly, I realized they looked tall because I was still hunched over on the floor.

"We're going to take you to the infirmary. Do you understand?"

For a second his features came sharply into mental focus. My brain operated with crystal clarity, and I glimpsed the second figure, standing behind the first. The mental _click pictured_ before I reeled again in stupor.

Hahaha. The curtain of fog had descended once again, but my mind's eye saw the future with perfect clarity. I fumbled with the MDI, pressing a few buttons as if by accident, and handed it up to the figure above me. "I'll go to the infirmary. _Back this take_ to my quarters?"

The soldier standing in front made a face I couldn't interpret and made as if to give the device to the one behind him, a new recruit. Then he stopped, glanced back at me, and down at the device. Without another word, the creature reached down and hauled me to my feet by the upper arm. "Sparky, call for backup. I don't like the looks of this."

"Sparky" hesitated, then fumbled with a device on his hip. He unbuckled the thing and raised it to his mouth. "This is Sporkachev calling for backup in sector, um, G-3. Uummm, suspicious suspect in a lab coat."

Voices on the other end of the line laughed. "This is Ruby. We'll be right there, Sparky. Hold on tight."

I glared blearily at the figures. Somehow my perfect future had been aborted. "This isn't right at all. How dare you."

"Just doing our job, sir. If you're in the early stages of the virus, we need to keep you from doing anything you'll regret." The soldier in front forcibly turned me around and pulled my arms behind me. By the time I comprehended what he had done, my wrists had been pulled into a total paralysis gauntlet.

Electrical currents assaulted me; I lost all control of my body. Rage fumed from my brilliant, trapped mind as the guard put me into a kneeling position. I recognized with impotent fury the noise of my newest MDI being set gently on the floor. "This doesn't look like a bomb, but on the other claw, Sparky doesn't look like a real Hunter. Just give 'em time, that's my motto. Or, uh, don't, if it's a bomb. Bombs explode."

Silence followed the guard's remark. I struggled to listen through the haze around my senses, but the sounds of the two reploids and their voices had vanished. Why would they stop and stand so absurdly still after all that? A legion of pi thousand wall-eyed, even the fraction demons crawled out of my mouth and invaded the galaxy to rape its hot, steaming muffins. I recognized that the hallucinations had started and forced myself into unconsciousness.

LGLGL

Watching from a distant corner of the world, I shook my head and sighed. So much work to do, and so little time. Less than ever, sadly, after what had just happened in MHHQ.

Dr. Gate knelt stiffly on the floor, paralyzed and perhaps unconscious. The Evil Energy readings had been coming from him after all. Had I only come along farther with the detection technology since the last time, I might have helped my son stop all this trouble from the beginning. Now I had so little time left to warn him.

Sparky and the other guard, whose name escaped me, had disappeared from this universe. A spike of Evil Energy readings appeared on my detectors almost simultaneously. Perhaps using the Evil Energy as a power source, Gate had succeeded in creating an area-of-effect subspace teleporter. Moreover, he had somehow avoided getting caught in the effects despite his proximity to the device at the moment of teleportation. The possibilities made my gut wrench with fear.

I relaxed my focus on the camera feed and two others immediately grabbed me. My son X had collapsed in his chair at Alia's bedside, while Zero had crashed to the floor in the middle of his mad dash to the infirmary. I felt a stab of terror pierce my ancient soul.

What had that Gate done?


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: In which our heroes awaken for battle.**

I had flashes of consciousness.

A spiky-haired teenager dressed in black stood in the air, holding what looked like a ridiculously huge falchion. Blood dripped from his head. He said nothing, but—

"Nooooooooo!" I saw a hospital somewhere. People stood all around the bed where a young man laid, his body far too quiet and still. Anguished sobbing filled—

Unearthly groans echoed from all around. A bearded man with a long blond ponytail stood with sword drawn on a hill, while a woman spoke from her place on a giant bird before him. "Until we meet again, belov—"

A young woman fell to her knees, hands held up as if in supplication. Auburn hair tumbled around her shoulders like a waterfall of bronze as tears dripped freely from her eyes. "Xavier! Xavier, come back to m—"

My mind swam into the darkness, and found a pocketful of memories. But whose?

Ah well. At least I still seemed to have a brain to think with, after all that pain. One minute I was at Alia's bedside, the next I found myself down in a pit somewhere, feeling like I had gone a long way and come back without ever deciding to travel.

At least I hadn't been alone.

With that thought, my mind swam up from the darkness, shattering my visions of the future's memories like glass under the touch of a murderous hammer. As I awoke, the fragments of recollection left me altogether.

X

"Fire!"

Guns shrieked and blared in the distance, insulated from my senses by a half-dozen walls and the fog of recent unconsciousness. Maverick Hunter HQ had come under attack. My buster armed and began to charge at about the same time my feet hit the floor. Meanwhile, my communicator crackled with radio chatter from those of my squad who still lived—mostly orders to them from Sprint Eagle, in fact.

"Mike, Sound Barrage! Go!"

Mike was Rockstar's codename for use during battle. It's funny if you think about it.

"Eeesssckaaaaykkpt!"

"Now! Go for it, Lensy!"

Lensy, Cataract's codename. I picked it myself when she first joined the squad.

I burst out of the tiny hospital-smelling room and found myself in the main area of the infirmary at MHHQ. Padded tables lay unfilled throughout the room, waiting for the waves of injured sure to come. With all the wars I've been in, I found myself wondering not if I had lost anyone, but whom I had lost in the firefight already. My hands found the handle for the main door to the infirmary.

"Commander X, you're awake!" A young male voice piped up from the other side of the room. I looked over my shoulder and saw a human intern, probably in his late twenties, wearing a lab coat. He had sandy blond hair and a hooked Roman nose. A connection closed in my brain.

"Tom. How long have I been out? What's the situation?"

Tom Saunders looked me up and down as if trying to diagnose a problem. "You were down in something like full hibernation mode, and it was about a week. Someone leaked that you and Zero were out of commission and Mavericks attacked in the wee hours of the morning two days ago. Zero got up during the battle and fought but fainted at the end, and now we're under attack again. I think they're inside the building."

I nodded. "And Alia?"

The sounds of gunfire got noticeably louder and closer. The intern's face filled with fear as he looked past me at the door. His mind had probably filled with memories from the last Maverick War, or maybe historical images he'd seen from the war before that one. Those old news programs didn't leave much for the imagination.

As much as I wanted him to tell me what happened to Alia, war is no place for a human. I waved for Tom to go back to his hiding place and hailed my squad on the comlink.

"Blue Bomber here in the infirmary. Systems nominal, I'm ready to fight. Quill, give me some orders."

"Bomber! It's good to hear your voice." Sprint Eagle (a.k.a. Quill) processed for a second, probably torn between sorting out strategic options and fighting off Mavericks. I listened to the approaching noises of battle and gestured for Tom to go hide himself. My second-in-command took back the comlink.

"The infirmary doors have been sealed to protect you and some of the infirmary staff. Red Ripper's been moved to another location. We're executing Ambrosia-6 on some of the attackers with you as the Calypso."

I nodded. Using the Calypso bait-and-pincer was a perfect strategy in this kind of situation, provided they had a good stopper to close the trap. In this situation I'd pick Rumble Rhino unless he had some kind of weakness to the attackers' armaments.

On another level, I wondered whether asking about Alia on the com would put her in any more danger. The last I remembered, she was just opening her eyes, and her brain had been giving us all kinds of weird readings on the monitors. Hopefully Sigma didn't know how valuable she was to me yet. With that in mind, I decided against asking about her until after we'd secured the base. "Good. Is there anything else I should know?"

The building shook with an enormous tremor, like high explosives had gone off somewhere outside the complex. Without even having to think about it, I swayed with the motion to keep my balance.

Then the door in front of me exploded.

My body reacted well before my mind. I leapt clear of the blast and raised my X Buster with the idea of firing through the breach where the door had been. Before I had the chance to do that, however, Rumble Rhino's massive form crashed into the hall and barreled away. Pebble-sized debris plinked off the forceshield visor that protected my eyes.

Storm Eagle's voice crackled in on the radio. "Yessir. Stay clear of the door."

My eyes rolled behind the visor. "Thanks. I'll keep that in mind."

He paused a second longer than I expected before answering. I wondered momentarily if the reploid had picked up the faintest trace of sarcasm when he spoke again. "Blue Bomber, new orders. You're ready for action?"

Signas had already figured out what to do with me? His processing speed must have gotten better when I was out, or else—a thought struck me. I decided to risk a little piece of information on the com by using Signas' codename. "I'm ready. What's Medalman got to say?"

I swear I heard Storm Eagle chuckle. His next statement, though, was the best thing I'd heard in a long time.

"Medalman? Get with the times, Blue Bomber. Honeyhair's handing out orders now. Listen up."

I smiled, trying to focus on the orders, but a part of my brain simply refused to listen. Alia was alive! My Alia! And she was even commanding her first battle. I, Megaman X, had the best wife ever.

SXSXS

"This is incredible."

I looked back at Captain Koyotsu and frowned. The Japanese are not at all reserved like people say. They are downright talkative. Their reploids, at least, talk too much. Talkative was not what I wanted from a captain of bodyguards.

We set this room up in a fortified basement to keep a few VIP's safe. Zero lay on the cot behind me. Captain Koyotsu, head of the special protection squad, stood a few feet off to my left. His crew had already set themselves up around the area for safekeeping. Sigma loves killing generals.

The old monster had pulled a fast one on us this time for sure. When Zero and X collapsed, my subordinate Catcher Tiger defected right from under our noses. He had to be the one who carried the information about their condition to the other Mavericks. We reasoned this not only because he went missing, but because we found his body after the first attack—amidst the wreckage of a bunch of other Mavericks that got in Zero's way.

Speaking of Zero—I glanced back to see if he had stirred. Nothing so far this battle, but we were only twenty minutes into it. Maybe he'd come around in time. Him or X.

Koyotsu Narutobi turned his bright, smiling face at me and smiled even bigger. He spoke perfect English, anyway. "The lieutenant's been rebuilt by Light-sama, and now it's time to show us her true power. This is her crowning moment of awesome, General. I'm happy I was here to see this."

We both looked at Alia. She stood in front of the battle monitor. It's a screen for watching a whole battle at once, with information from all of our spotters on the display. The base commander watches it and gives the unit commanders orders. I used it during the fourth war to keep an eye on major conflicts. I used it during the defense of HQ a few nights ago, at least at the start.

Then Lt. Alia took over and I just sat back and watched. She ran the battle like a master general. This time, I had her deliver orders from the beginning. Why bother trying to stop a landslide? She was brilliant. Smarter than me, no problem.

"It's interesting her new powers manifested as a strategist instead of a frontline tactician like Commander X. Maybe it's because she was originally trained as a spotter? But that's funny; she worked in the sciences before we even met her. Shouldn't the upgrade have made her a better scientist instead of a better spotter?"

Koyotsu was still talking. That paragraph is part of the record from my auditory logs. In fact, I ignored the reploid at the time. I was busy listening to Alia give orders on the comlink.

"Popeye, Celty, back off. Something's wrong with the enemy formation. Ikkaku, bring your squad in and flank those mechaniloids. Quill, spring the trap already, they're getting too close to my bait."

That meant X. She told me everything about her new upgrade after Zero and X collapsed. I still didn't understand it at all, but not much I could do about that. I could definitely tell she was different now. It scared me to see how different.

She turned and looked at me. "General, where's our air support? Did you call the army?"

I nodded. "I contacted them about fifteen minutes ago. They should be here any second."

A shockwave rolled in hard. I stumbled to keep upright; Koyotsu and the bodyguards in the room with us barely kept their footing. Alia, though? She hardly moved. I didn't even know if she noticed until I saw her expression.

Lt. Alia used to be as professional as anyone. She always kept a tight lid on her emotions during missions. You can't keep an eye out for your unit if it's tearing up or going red. Alia had always put her feelings aside when duty called for it. These last few days, though…

When she thought the Air Force had bombed our battle without telling us, her blue eyes hit me like a post pounder. I've seen a lot in my thirty years and I stepped back like I'd been burned. She turned back to the screen, voice full of rage.

"The entire north side is gone. We nearly lost Popeye's squad. General—"

I shook my head. "That wasn't the military. They'll radio in for targets when they arrive."

At that point I saw what Alia had seen on the monitor. My pupils shrank to tiny little dots.

The north side was nothing but a crater. Our facility walls had been cracked right open, leaving a clear path to the brig. We had moved some Mavericks out after the first attack, and the survivors of Repliforce had gone to a different prison to begin with, but our on-base holding facility was still half full of infected reploids taken prisoner in the war. And, as we watched, a couple of enemy diggers popped up from the crater of the explosion. They made a break for the brig at top speed.

"Popeye, Celty, don't let those—" Alia stopped as another unit of Mavericks slipped onto the screen. Our spotters quickly ID's them as a light mounted unit. Worse, they had the kinds of anti-infantry weaponry perfect for taking down units like Killer Kelly's and Nautical Ned's. The lieutenant pursed her lips. "New orders. You two take your squads and harass the mechaniloids on the east side. Blue Bomber will take it from here. Quill, I'm beaming Blue Bomber to the brig area, along with two of your squad members. Lavender, initiate teleport protocols."

Blue Bomber? When had X woken up? Huh. There was his icon on the screen, right in the infirmary. And here Alia was sending him straight to the front lines. Emotions or not, she certainly didn't waste any time.

I tried to keep that in mind as I listened to the reploid's ensuing dialogue with her new "husband." Not just the words, but the saccharine tone—I ordered myself not to visibly cringe.

Dr. Light, what have you done to my Hunters?

ASASA

"Now, when you engage the enemy, shoot to kill, honey. We can't afford to give Sigma any reinforcements from those prisoners."

"Yes, dear. We'll make sure they don't get out. Thanks for the data files on the prisoners, by the way."

"Of course! I can't have you lose any of them, sugarpie."

He laughed at that, which made me smile. I'd been waiting to hear that voice again for what felt like a very long time. In the days since he'd lost consciousness, I hadn't gone five minutes without thinking about my X; his messy brown hair, the smile he kept for everyone to see, our future together—I never wanted anything to separate us again. I couldn't stand the thought of losing him. That's what young love is like, people tell me now.

I saw on the screen that he'd made contact with the enemy. I wished I could be there with him for this, but Dr. Light's upgrade had primarily focused on my CPU and internals, not weapons or armor. My Alia Buster had gotten a power increase, but nothing else. I could help X best by directing the battle from here in the general's command room. With that thought, I reviewed the battle monitor and sent orders to some of our other squads.

Signas' voice intruded on my private reflections. "You're not worried about sending X into the fight?"

"Of course I'm worried, but he's the best man available for the job. And don't worry, I'm having Lavender keep a close eye on him. If X shows any signs of fainting again, she'll teleport him out before he hits the ground."

Signas raised an eyebrow at that but didn't question me any further. I didn't really want to tell him any more at the moment, so that was just fine with me. When the Maverick virus could potentially infect anyone, it was better to keep the most important secrets as close as possible. The truth was, I didn't need Layer—codename Lavender—to watch X for me; I had another way of keeping tabs on him without the use of sight, sound, or comlink.

_Alia, if you are reading this message, then the upgrade was a success. As soon as you have a chance, you should conduct a thorough self-analysis and identify all the new systems embedded in your body. Do this in private; the secrets involved with some of your new abilities are powerful and dangerous, especially in the wrong hands. _

That last part of the message had been interesting. Dr. Light hadn't said the secrets of the design could be dangerous only "in the wrong hands." He had said they were dangerous, "especially in the wrong hands." Why give me such a dangerous tool? It made me wonder what kind of threat Dr. Light expected us to face.

Once I had woken up and that message popped up from my files, I took a good, long look at my systems. Aside from the new hardware I was told to expect, he had essentially scrapped my old processor and put in a whole new design with thirty-two times the processing power. As a researcher who specializes in programming techniques and circuit design, I had never thought that kind of speed possible. It put me in a league beyond even X or Zero, in the realm of supercomputer clusters that filled entire lab rooms.

I had taken Dr. Light's advice as soon as possible and dug further to find out what else the upgrade had changed. I found an extensive set of protocols for android development and construction; in effect, instructions for building another living robot like X, or another ten like him, lacking only a few key pieces of seed data to determine the rest of the blueprints. Before my upgrade, such a find would have left me catatonic with shock; Dr. Light had left me his own personal robotics production manual with only five or six critical diagrams missing. It was amazing, it was unprecedented, and it was mine, but it wasn't the dangerous power the doctor had alluded to. I dug deeper into my internals for the answer.

The search paid off. Deep in the guts of my new neural equipment, surrounded by a shell of metal I couldn't identify, Dr. Light had installed a piece of hardware I had no idea could exist. A one-page help file came along with it, describing the device as an "extradimensional communication system" and warning against its misuse in the direst of language. A log file referenced in the help file marked Megaman X as the only "identity" registered for communication.

Communication, however, utterly failed to describe that device's true function.

X's emotions flittered unabated through my mind once I activated the extradimensional communication system. Muted confusion and uncertainty while he slept, melancholy as he awoke, sorrow and anxiety when he became fully aware of the battle, frustration, surprise, a surge of joy—and only moments ago, I felt the wave of relief wash over him when he learned that I had taken command in General Signas' place. My husband's emotions swept atop my own like waves on the beach, wonderfully united but still separate enough to distinguish the one from the other.

Even now I felt his excitement at entering the maze of deathtraps outside the brig, tempered with a concern for his squad members. I couldn't pick up his actual line of reasoning or conscious thoughts, but I knew instantly his emotional reactions. Dr. Light had given me a device for nothing less than telempathic communication.

Telempathy! I had an inside view of X's innermost feelings, anytime I needed—anytime I wanted. The thought frightened me and thrilled me all at once. True, I couldn't hear his thoughts, and knowing his emotions while asleep or unconscious did me little good, but those limitations didn't make me any less aware of the device's potential uses. For instance, could I rework the device to transmit as well as receive? Could I link to other thinking robots and nudge their emotions one way or the other?

One way or the other, I had certainly found the power Dr. Light meant to give me. At the very least, if X's emotions shifted drastically or cut off, I'd know fast enough to teleport him out before his body hit the ground. I felt totally certain of my ability to follow through with the claims I made to Signas.

A sudden rumble cut off my train of thought. I saw on the battle screen that another huge crater had appeared where part of the brig area used to be. As usual, Sigma never let a good move un-reused; his diggers had been carrying a second pack of explosives to bust the brig open even further. For that matter, the blast had enough power to kill or cripple almost any resistance sent to deal with the situation, leaving easy pickings for the mounted unit approaching from the north. I saw Signas staring wide-eyed at the monitor and pursed my lips.

"General, I planned ahead to keep X safe. Sigma's not as unpredictable as he'd like to think." I paused and sent a couple of new orders over the comlink, then turned and gave Signas a level stare. I spoke the next sentence with the most serious tone at my disposal.

"While I'm operating for him, anything that threatens my husband will die."

"That sounds good to me."

The voice came from behind us, off to one side; it had the slightly gravelly quality of someone who has just woken up from a long slumber. I turned from the monitor and saw Zero stretching like a sleepy cat. Like a sleepy, lethally armed and nearly indestructible cat. I frowned.

"Are you going to pass out again like last time, or can I trust you to stay awake until the job is done?"

Hands on hips, the blond twisted his torso from left to right with a distressing popping noise. "Oh, sure, X you trust implicitly, but I get the third degree. I see how it is. Look, just send me out there already so I can fi—"

He stopped in midsentence, expression flickering to surprise, and beamed out in a crimson flash of energy. I nodded, momentarily impressed; Layer was getting faster with those teleport codes.

The general's voice broke the silence. "Lieutenant, how did he know about X?"

I shrugged. "Why isn't he still a rabid killing machine like when he woke up the very first time? There's a lot I don't understand about Zero, General. Let's just see if Sigma's goons have a countermove to this."

I pointed at the screen, where X, Zero, and two of X's troops had confronted the incoming mobile unit. I turned my attention elsewhere. The world's two greatest heroes had taken that side of the battle; what could possibly go wrong now?

XAXAX

We arrived in a collective flash of teleportation. I felt my coolant pump's beating quicken involuntarily. Even knowing exactly where to turn and how to dodge every trap, coming into the maze outside the brig still makes me wonder whether artificial intelligences can expect an afterlife. Certainly, if I made a wrong move anywhere inside, I'd find out once and for all.

Don't get me wrong. The design was more or less my own idea. By the end of the first war my team and I had fought our way through more trap-ridden fortresses than Dr. Wily used to build in a year; apparently the Maverick virus does strange things to a reploid's sense of interior design. I'm immune to possession by the virus, but I do like stealing other people's good ideas, and even the useless ones if they look interesting enough. I'm pretty sure surrounding the brig in a horrifying labyrinth of deathtraps was one of the good ones.

There was a safe way through to the brig, since we weren't sociopathic killers like the average Maverick, but it was a guarded secret even among MHHQ staff. I helped design it, Zero helped test it, and no one else but Squad 8 and a few higher-ups knew how to get through unscathed. Rockstar and Blast Turtle would have to have their memories scrubbed if they wanted to go back to normal duties after this.

Alia's voice came in on the comlink. "I'm sure I don't need to tell you where you are. Now, when you engage the enemy, shoot to kill, honey. We can't afford to give Sigma any reinforcements from those prisoners."

"Yes, dear. We'll make sure they don't get out. Thanks for the data files on the prisoners, by the way."

"Of course! I can't have you lose any of them, sugarpie."

I laughed, and Alia laughed with me. With a tinge of regret, I wrenched my thoughts away from her and focused on the situation at hand.

Layer had teleported us into a hallway right next to the one the suicide bombers had busted open. Screams from behind the wall assured us the attacking diggers had not come sufficiently prepared to tackle the maze. Blast Turtle and Rockstar looked around, their eyes going from the wall-mounted turrets to the floor spikes to the ceiling spikes to the random white-hot flame jets to the non-Newtonian acid pits. I grinned apologetically and shrugged.

"Squad 8 might go a teeny bit overboard in some places. You guys like memory wipes, right?"

Rockstar wiped a greasy lock of hair out of his eyes. "Um, Commander X? How are we going to make it out of here alive 'n stuff?"

Blast Turtle looked up, looked at the wall, and tackled both of us to the ground. Rockstar reacted with superhuman speed in his usual manner.

"Frackle jaggit shetting mudderetching ashulofa—"

Then the world exploded.

I realized, after the first few seconds, that the world had not entirely exploded; I've been in a lot of rubble piles, and this floor felt too solid to qualify. Also, for all my uncertainties regarding the afterlife, I doubted it smelled like C-4 and grease-scented hair wax.

What I took for collapsed ceiling slowly lifted until it looked less like a ceiling and more like Blast Turtle. He rose like a colossus from the ruins, dust and debris pouring off his dented red shell like a waterfall. The reploid cocked his head and hunkered down to fire his shoulder-mounted shock cannon, and at last my ears picked up the whine of approaching hovercycles. Blast Turtle had probably sensed them first the same way he sensed the bomb before it detonated; his design and long experience in demolitions gave him a sixth sense for explosives.

I sprang to my feet and right on cue, our spotter (codename Lavender) informed us on the threat: thirteen mechabikers with a reploid leader we hadn't seen before. They were armed with light repeaters and armored with phase deflectors. Two in the back had rocket launchers. Watching them approach through a cloud of dust, I realized the enemy's next move and looked around for cover.

Our new environment offered plenty of that. The most recent explosion had rendered the two-story maze into a wreckage heap of stone, plaster, steel, and bits of various traps. Parts of roof or wall remained intact, but in general, we and the maze's ruins stood open to the overcast morning sky above. My eyes scanned across the battlefield for useful patterns and found several before Layer had time to point them out.

"Rockstar, Blast Turtle, hide in the collapsed crushwalls over there and disrupt the enemy charge. I'll stop them from reaching the brig. The traps should all be disabled by that last blast, so move!"

The two of them shouted acknowledgement and ran off. Glancing back at the mechabikers, then to the crumbling ruin of the outer brig area, I sprinted over piles of rubble and switched to Magna Centipede's weapon. By the time I reached my goal in front of the still-intact holding area, some of the mechabikers had opened fire and I had left a round dozen magna-mines in their path. Their shots flew wild into disabled traps and crumbled concrete walls while Magna's bombs laid wait for them.

Once I reached the front of the holding cells area, I skidded behind a handy spiketrap and switched weapons; blinding flashes of energy shot from my buster into the advancing pack. The weapon was decades old, and modern reploid armor shrugged it off like water, but Neon Tiger's Ray Splasher had never been about inflicting damage.

I should explain. Somebody told me once to get rid of my outdated special weapons, like Neon Tiger's blinding light attack and Crystal Snail's immobilization crystals. I gave that person the same answer I gave the people who insult my old bell bottoms: everything has its use, and everything eventually comes back into style. When the time is right I will bring back the afro and no one will laugh at my old weapons again.

The oncoming mechabikers certainly didn't find them funny. Eyelids squinched shut and hands flew up to protect sensitive optics from the light; the magna-mines exploded with little force but their intense magnetic fields played merry hell with the thrusters on the speeding hovercycles. Distracted and scattered by the combined effects, the mechabikers fell easy prey to Blast Turtle's shock cannon and Rockstar's sonic blaster. Some crashed into debris on their very own. A stray rocket sailed uselessly into the air, its hapless owner veering wide in an attempt to keep his bike under control. He did not succeed.

I let off another round of Ray Splasher before switching to the Megabuster and ducking down to charge a shot. Sadly, my Fourth Armor had been deactivated and removed after I passed out, but system upgrades from previous wars have left me plenty strong anyway. The sounds of gunfire and the whine of the hovercycles grew louder and louder while I charged.

It was just as I popped up to fire that everything changed.

The mechabikers had closed the distance between us to a matter of yards. Having put my back to the concrete pile, I rotated as I rose to face the oncoming threat, bracing my right arm with my left in preparation to fire. The enemy had their attention focused completely on the brig that lay beyond us. I took aim at the reploid leader when a crimson flash interrupted the scene.

With my tremendous processing speed, I perceived Zero forming as if in slow motion. As fast as I am, though, he was faster. The android's beam saber flared into life before he even finished materializing; as the mechabikers passed, the weapon flickered twice and Zero turned to fire at their retreating backs. I came to my senses in time to release my own charged shots into the fray.

Explosions rent the enemy ranks from one end to the other. Some came from our weapons fire, but at least two detonations originated from the power cores of dismembered mechabikers. The reploid leader and a scant two of his pack survived intact, and all three promptly jumped from their hovercycles, leaving them to ram straight into the wall of the brig.

Funny. I pulled a similar trick near the beginning of the first war, and people have been copycatting me ever since. And people get after me for stealing techniques.

Already damaged from the previous blasts, the brig wall broke wide open with the mechabikers' sacrificial charge. This had probably been Sigma's plan from the beginning; however, he obviously hadn't counted on both myself and Zero appearing and decimating his mechabikers. The first two high explosives attacks had been intended to disable any defenders near the brig. Without anyone to stop them, the mechabiker squad and its leader would've broken open the brig like a house of blocks and slapped teleporter transceivers on the prisoners to beam them out. We had jamming in place, but no practical jamming system yet invented can stop transceiver-assisted outbound teleportation.

It was a good, workable plan, but at the same time, Sigma had spent an enormous amount of resources to break out a scant few prisoners of war. The cost-benefit analysis didn't add up. Given, he had inflicted a lot of collateral damage on MHHQ in the process, and could easily have brought down a few squads of Hunters with those explosives and the biker rush, but I still felt there was something more going on here. Sigma had to have some especially good reason to break out those prisoners.

Regardless of what that reason may have been, Zero, Rockstar, Blast Turtle, and I opened fire on the three remaining bikers like an execution squad. Their armor held up less than a second against the barrage; we made sure they never had a chance to slip into the brig. My heart sank at the sight, but it was the only way to keep Sigma from getting the prisoners inside. Even with a hole in the wall, there was no possible way for them to escape while their cell doors remained intact. Squad Eight knew their job better than that.

GXGXG

Darkness and noise surrounded me. The lights had gone out with that second explosion. I, the incredible Dr. Gate, sat listlessly inside my cell.

The Voice had not spoken to me since my ignominious capture a week ago, leaving me to wallow in my failure. What had made those despicable guards call for backup? Why didn't it go like I planned? And why had they gone and arrested me afterwards? They couldn't have known what I had done. I was just the victim of circumstances. Why didn't they believe my story?

I cursed. Those Hunters hadn't even listened to my story after I woke up. All they wanted to know was where those guards had gone. How should I know! All I had done was banish them. I didn't care where they went, so long as they went. Their sacrifice may have already created the gate I dreamed of making. What were a handful of reploids more or less? Why should anyone care what happened to them? They probably weren't even custom models like me. They might as well have been humans: mass-produced by amateurs without the least prior thought to the design efficiency.

As I sat stewing on the injustice of it all, a whisper of light crept across my mind and I felt the promise of revenge. A vision permeated my brilliant mind, forewarning me of how to proceed. My heart lifted with hope; the Voice had spoken to me again at last!

I stood and braced myself. Just as the vision had warned, another explosion shook the walls of the prison and punched a hole straight through. Through the sound and smoke I heard the tremendous clang of every cell door bursting outwards, and I knew the blast must have hit the main control unit for the prison. Perfect.

It struck me later as oddly convenient that an uncontrolled detonation should open the doors so uniformly. At the time, however, I simply waited for the chaos to subside.

Chaos? Oh yes. I heard a cacophony of shouts and the heavy stomping of soldiers' feet. The other prisoners dashed from their cells like reploids possessed. The sounds of gunfire and plasma bursts outside didn't seem to phase them any more than their own lack of weapons or armor. They hadn't yet realized one simple truth: not one of them had the power to escape this compound alive.

Of course, the maverick virus has that effect on people. I find it nothing less than barbaric. Sigma and his ragtag band of brigands will never achieve anything but anarchy and technological regression, like Wily and his infantile robot apocalypse.

A mid-size beast-form reploid howled in the midst of them, and the hurried motion in the darkened brig subsided. A loud even voice called for order and quickly laid out a plan.

"Blah blah blach blach blah blah—" and so on, as far as I cared to discern. I don't bother listening to fools.

Following the vision the Voice had given me, I crept from my broken cell and moved quickly to the door of the brig. It remained as suspiciously open as the rest of the cell doors. Beyond it lay fire traps, and electrocution wires, and death spikes, acid sprays…independent power remained for these when the cells themselves lost primary and backup.

My eyes burned with the glory of the Voice.

I make no pretense of athleticism; I'm entirely uninterested in pedantic details like deftness, energy, or resilience. The jailors hadn't inhibited my systems like the other prisoners because I had no weapons to speak of, not even the brute strength of a factory-line servant. Dr. Cain built me without those things for his own accursed reasons.

That day outside the brig, though, I moved like a god.

The vision flooded through me! My body flowed and wove through traps and triggers, sinuous and shining in the light of electrical arcs capable of totally fusing my systems. My synthetic skin, bare of lab coat or undershirt since my imprisonment, gleamed like oil as jets of fire flared feet away from me. One, two, three steps, and a jump, step, twirl, step, jump, through spikes that rushed out from the walls and down from the ceiling in a pattern unpredictable by any digital system. I danced through the monsters of stone and metal let loose from the floor and leapt across the pits like pools of endless black. My body moved as if on its own, a puppet dancing flawlessly on strings of streaming dark energy while my conscious mind watched in wonder.

By the time I arrived at the exit to the prison maze I was breathing hard and red in the face from trying to cool my heated body—but I was alive. I keyed in the code for the door to the rest of MHHQ and walked into my brilliant new life.

All will know of Dr. Gate, and fear.

0G0G0

One, two, three quick reploids came pounding out of the broken brig. They weren't due for execution for another week, but if they wanted to keep helping out with Squad 8's research they should've stayed in the brig. Despite a moment's surprise at their escape from their cells, our ranged attacks tore the reploids apart like so much confetti. Bloody, twitching confetti.

A grim little smile played across my face. I hate confronting a maverick I used to know, and especially for the first time; there's that second of hesitation where I have the urge to save them, and I realize I can't. The first moment of confrontation always gives me a pang.

Then, sooner or later, the second moment comes along. They do or say something that makes them nothing more to me than malfunctioning hardware. Like make a threat against X, or promise I'll regret coming to fight them, or draw a weapon or set off a bomb, or just give me that look that tells me no one I want to know is home anymore. When that happens everything changes. When I know, absolutely know from core to fingertips my comrade is dead, killing the parasite in his body gives me a buzz like no other.

I'm talking about fighting reploid Mavericks here, of course. Mechaniloids are nothing more than target practice.

A quick dash or three put me in reach of the hole in the brig wall. After all the effort Sigma's troops put into breaking these guys out, I had a feeling the fight hadn't ended yet.

As if to spite me, the roar of Air Force jets came thundering in from the sky above, followed by the threatening whistle of falling bombs. That spelled the end of whatever overt resistance the Mavericks had to offer. Explosions from across the battlefield shook the ground, and right on cue, a bunch of Mavericks took a shot at escaping the brig.

They thought I'd be off guard from the explosions.

They thought wrong.

Three big fighters, armorless and quick, rushed out to tackle me. My Z-Saber flared five times in half a second and reploid parts rained down around me. Energy attacks screamed in from the side and tore apart another four or five hostiles as they attacked.

Finally, the ringleader of the group showed himself. Lupe de Couronne, originally designed by the French as an agent of the neoroyal guard, had been one of the few Maverick leaders to face defeat without dying in the process. In other words, he met X on a good day. Good thing, too; Squad 8 had pumped him for information since the moment we captured him.

Lupe was probably also the reason for this desperate assault; Sigma doesn't value many of his pawns, but when he finds one of them interesting, he'll go to insane extremes to recapture them.

Kind of like how crazy he gets about capturing X.

Putting that thought away for the moment, I prepared myself for Lupe's inevitable charge. He had given us a lot of trouble as a Maverick. Even disarmed and without his ferrofibrous power armor to absorb attacks, the wolf-bot moved quicker and fought smarter than almost anyone we've encountered. X had admitted to getting lucky with capturing him like they did. To top it all off, Squad 8 had never found a way to limit his speed without compromising vital systems. Thinking about that, I realized what I had to do.

Lupe dashed towards me with a snarl, then darted around my first wild slash. Seeing their leader's move, two or three of the tougher cronies ran off towards X's squad, drawing their fire and ensuring I fought the wolf without my allies' support. I brought the Z-Saber back up as if to guard against a tackle, but the wolf-bot lunged for my ankle and yanked my feet out from under me instead. My hands flew out to either side in apparent surprise as I fell.

The gray-furred reploid leapt for my neck with jaws wide. Lupe had used this technique many times before; the sheer speed of his attack left no time to think of a counter-strategy.

Good thing I had finished thinking about my strategy a long time ago.

My left dash jet flared wildly under the wolf's torso, letting loose its entire payload in a fraction of a second. The overpressured burst of ions hit Lupe in the torso and sent him spinning off to my right; the reaction force drove me body another two inches into the rubble beneath me.

Not nearly far enough to stop me from chopping Lupe in half.

My Z-Saber arm, conveniently flung far out to the right, flexed inwards with a twitch of pectoral actuators. My hand crossed under the wolf-bot as his body flew helplessly in the other direction; the beam saber slashed past his fake fur and unarmored hide, carved through the muscles in his stomach, chopped the spine in half, sliced past his internals, and slipped out the other side of his torso in a burst of burning artificial flesh.

In another second, a short series of thuds sounded to my right. Lupe de Couronne's two halves hit the ground and bounced once or twice before coming to a stop. I rolled to my feet with saber drawn to deal with any more trouble. Any other Mavericks aside, Lupe still needed a little more attention from the Red Ripper to seal the deal.

Or so I thought. No sooner had I regained my footing than a familiar shriek of energy flashed past me and detonated on the Maverick's broken upper body, reducing it to twisted, burning wreckage. Even cockroaches don't come back from that. I turned to X, not two dozen yards away, who shrugged and gave me an embarrassed look as his buster cooled.

"Sorry, he twitched funny and I got spooked."

I rolled my eyes. "Megaman X, you are hopeless."

A0A0A

The battle had ended. Mop-up operations finished the last of the enemy mechaniloids and Zero returned to his unit to help with the wounded. For a fighting android, he had a surprising knack for battlefield repair. Medics hated dealing with the makeshift solutions afterward, but at the very least, Zero kept power cores from exploding and neural equipment from overloading.

For his part, X had professional experience building and programming reploids but less experience fixing them. He makes a better doctor of psychology than doctor of mechanical medicine. Plus, he gets the saddest expression out looking at the wreckage on a battlefield, so I ordered my husband to report in before I actually called an end to the battle.

Of course, he reported in to General Signas. The moment I declared the fighting ended, I ceded authority as the commanding officer; Washington wouldn't react too well if they found a mere lieutenant with less than eight years' experience running the base instead of their handpicked reploid general. For one, he had actually gone to officer school before taking on this job. My main claim to fame at the moment consisted of a yet-to-be-made-public upgrade from Dr. Light and a holofile with a "Certificate of Robotic Matrimony" on it. Legend or not, that old roboticist had one odd sense of humor.

At any rate, I ducked out of the command room before X arrived. From the feelings my telempathy system picked up, he intended to give the General a full report on his situation, and I didn't want our first face-to-face meeting after the upgrades to be a military debriefing.

…although, a non-military one might be nice…

I suppressed the sudden urge to giggle and ran to X's office instead. The giggle burst through regardless and the run turned into an all-out sprint.

I knew exactly how to welcome my conquering hero home.


	7. Chapter 7

_When last we left our heroes, they had successfully fought off an attack by Sigma's presumably few remaining soldiers. X returned to Signas' office and Alia retreated towards X's rooms for reasons not yet fully disclosed. Zero is presumably still playing battlefield medic. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to anyone but himself, Gate escaped the maze around the brig with a sizable dose of freaky otherworldly help. Dr. Light's location and current activity are unknown. As usual._

_You get the recap because I took forever to post this chapter and I don't want anyone to get confused. I'll remove it in a month or so, or whenever I get around to it. I'm finally authorized to work more than 20 hrs/week at the college, so don't be surprised by long delays._

_As always, I thank my wife and MungoJerry my beta reader for their invaluable contributions. Enjoy._

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 7: in which Gate lives up to his name.<strong>

Oddly, Alia wasn't in the command room for my debriefing. I had expected Signas to keep her around so she could hear any new information about my status. After all, she was assigned as my personal spotter on missions; even with our new relationship aside, she needed to know whether I felt up to continuing normal duties. As I gave my report to the stoic general, I wondered where she had hurried off to so quickly.

"Well, it sounds to me like you're fully operational for the moment." Signas sighed. "But if even your system's self-analysis came up normal, we still have no leads on what made you pass out in the first place."

He hesitated after this comment, an uncertain expression crossing his features, and I came out of my personal musings enough to notice. "General, did something else come to mind?"

After another moment, he spoke, his eyes fixed in the distance. "There was something. Did you hear yet that Zero fell unconscious at the same time you did last week?"

"I gathered as much, yes. That worries me a lot more than simply passing out by myself, incidentally."

"There was one other thing that happened at about the same time. Dr. Gate, the researcher working on interdimensional travel, was involved in the disappearance of two guard reploids and taken into custody under suspicion of infection. We haven't been able to hold his trial yet and we never did find the missing guards."

I frowned. "Who were they?"

"Private Sporkachev Glykowsky and Corporal Blue Rider. They apprehended Dr. Gate for suspicious behavior and called for backup before disappearing from HQ. There were no signs of weapons fire or teleportation in the hallway, no other witnesses of the event, and no answers from Dr. Gate about what happened. We locked him up in the brig until the situation calmed down enough for more investigation, although now I guess we won't need to bother. There were no survivors from the battle among the prisoners, correct?"

I blinked and checked through the files my wife had given me when she sent me to the brig area. "Wait, Gate was in the brig when the attack happened? I thought Alia included his file by mistake." I winced as I realized how stupid that assumption had been, even if other things had distracted my attention. I should at least have asked her for clarification.

Signas frowned, his brows drawing together almost imperceptibly. "Are you saying you and Zero didn't encounter him?"

"No, we didn't, and the cells were empty when we checked. We had eyes on the hole in the brig since it opened up, and the way to the rest of the compound still had fully functioning traps set up. Only someone who knew the most recent layout of the area could have survived getting through. Has anyone from Squad Eight checked the intact part of the outer brig area for bodies yet?"

"No, the internal monitoring system for that area went offline during the battle. That means a manual check is the only way." He frowned more deeply. "We lost several combat members of Squad Eight during the first attack a few days ago. Of the survivors, we lost another two in the attack today. That leaves only Lieutenant Pro Tem and Private Red Tiger, and the battle just ended. I imagine they're still figuring out what to do next." Signas paused and sent out an order over the comlink. "They say they'll look into it, but Pro Tem has to get repairs first. He was damaged during the action today."

I nodded. "Squad Eight has a standing rule not to let anyone go into the trap maze alone. Even someone who knows what's in there can make a mistake."

"Yes, so I've heard. Dr. Gate would have been safer in his cell." Signas shook his head. "I still don't know what could have happened with those guards. At one point I thought Gate might have used his wormhole technology to send them away, but your reports indicate his technology requires the use of both a handheld device and a heavy installation in his lab. There's no way he could have operated any machinery with those handcuffs on regardless."

I nodded again. "It just doesn't add up, does it? Then again, sir, you were a private investigator before you became a Hunter. I'm sure you can figure out what's happened, General Signas."

His mouth twitched in what could have been a smile if he had let it happen. "I mostly investigated cases of adultery and cybersurveilance, not missing persons."

Of course, that sentence made me think of only one thing, and my brain leapt to the topic long before his. I kept my expression carefully blank while an awkward look grew slowly on Signas' face. "Is there something more you'd like to ask me, General?"

The atmosphere got even more awkward. "I'm not sure how to approach this, Commander X…"

I nodded sagely. "Don't worry. You can ask me."

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Commander, I've heard Alia's explanation of the new upgrades. There are a number of issues to work through…" The black-armored reploid trailed off, then pursed his lips. "What's the nature of your relationship with her now?"

I considered this a moment. "Happily married, sir."

Signas frowned. "You know the law—"

"—states that artificial intelligences cannot legally marry humans. Stevensen vs. Claymore Robotics, A.D. 2145. Neither Alia nor I are human, so that legal precedent doesn't apply."

He frowned more deeply. "What about Helbrecht vs. Drake? They established—"

"—that a free reploid cannot acquire an indentured reploid by way of marriage. Creative, though, how Ice Drake thought of freeing his little sister that way." Grinning foolishly, I took off my helmet to run a hand through my hair. "The issue of marriage between two free, functionally gendered artificial intelligences has never been precisely addressed, although I'll admit the outlook is a bit daunting. I'll have to talk to my lawyer before we decide to go public."

Signas nodded, staring distantly at a point somewhere past my left ear. "I should have expected you'd think this through. Did Dr. Light write out a marriage certificate, then?"

"No, I don't think he ever had that kind of legal authority. We do have it on audio record that he gave her to me as my wife, but in court, the better case will be to argue that we qualify as 'man' and 'woman' just as stated in that constitutional amendment and that binding us in marriage will serve the stated purposes of the arrangement."

"And those are?"

I opened my mouth to answer when a message came over the comlink. It was Alia's voice. "Dear, are you done meeting with Signas yet? You're needed in your office."

"Be right there, honey," I spoke aloud and waggled my eyebrows at Signas. "General, I think this'll have to wait. My wifey wants me."

The big black-armored reploid looked more uncomfortable than ever. "I hope your duties won't suffer as a result of all this."

Already at the door, I looked back over my shoulder at him and smiled. "Don't worry. Change is coming, but it's a good change for once. I'll make sure of it."

The resulting twitch of Signas' heavy eyebrows struck me as almost plaintive. "Will you?"

I nodded, a thought occurring to me. My next words came out with gentle confidence. "Yessir. Alia and I both. We'll make sure everything turns out all right."

Warmth suffused my body at the idea. I smiled at the general, stepped into the hallway, and let the door slide shut behind me.

Someday, despite all that's happened since then, I'm sure Alia and I will make it right.

Someday.

GXGXG

I successfully returned to the lab unharmed and unseen. Sanctuary at last! Freedom from the dogs that pursued me!

The influence of the Voice brought Multi-Dimensional Interface designs back to my mind. Surprisingly, and pleasantly, I hadn't yet experienced any side effects from the intense communication with the Voice that guided me safely out of the prison maze; the nerve endings near my actuators and joints relayed up an unusual sensation of burning, but nothing else. How odd.

I nodded at the helpful, if unprecedented, circumstance and pulled on a spare lab coat before moving to the autoforge in the back of my laboratory. With modifications of my own design, it held all the necessary equipment for producing as many as a dozen more of the MDI's I used to send away those guards before my imprisonment.

I didn't want to make more of those MDI's, though. I had come up with a better one in prison. Empty jail cells had a way of focusing the mind, I had discovered.

Nearly an hour passed as I labored to finish the new design and code it into the autoforge. Assuming my numeric approximations of the integration hadn't thrown off the result, I could safely conclude my gate to subspace had already formed with the banishment of those reploid guards a week ago. I finally had the power to summon allies from other worlds; I needed only to send an equal number of sacrifices into the void. Then, later, with enough sacrifices…

But no, I had more to worry about before that day. Other problems reared their repulsive, scaly heads, like a hydra rising from the sewage boiling up from my rotten world. To wit: Sigma and the Hunters had been killing reploids for decades. Their furious attacks on reason and sanity had troublesome implications for my continued research. I had best destroy them all before they caused me any further problems.

Finally I finished programming the autoforge. My beautiful, brilliant hands grasped hold of the necessary materials and fed them into the machine. Twenty minutes passed as I switched from checking my calculations to watching the machine and back again. Once before, an autoforge's seven-jointed arms had mixed up an order, and I had to scrape carboniferous crustules from the blasted device for a week. Or I would have, if I hadn't sent it to Android Hell instead by way of the incinerator.

After far too long, the autoforge finished the noisy main work of constructing the piece and issued forth a softer whine, the characteristic sound of applying sealant and polish. Only the best quality for my project. I waited expectantly for the machine to finish.

Thanks to the world's greatest fools, however, it was not to be.

XGXGX

Two sets of android footfalls clanked on the metal-tiled floor, moving calm and assuredly amidst the scattered noise of other running and walking feet. A busy eighty minutes had passed since the battle's end but the work of recovery had only begun. Reploids and mechaniloids crossed our path going one way and the other, putting together the broken pieces of Maverick Hunter HQ while two of their leaders saw to one last unresolved concern.

"You do smell weird."

I sniffed my hand again. "I don't think it smells weird. I think it smells, um, wholesome. That's a better word for it."

Zero rolled his eyes. "Yeah, funny. But no. Seriously, X, after this you take a shower. You and your smells are disgusting."

I shrugged. "I was going to shower off before Signas called and told me to gear up for a short mission. I'm always happy to help if you think it's necessary, but I can't say I know why you insisted we go check Dr. Gate's lab instead of sending a couple of rookies."

"What, is Alia upset about having to cut short the honeymoon?" The other Hunter snorted. "Something about all this doesn't add up and I don't want to make any stupid mistakes."

"All right, that's fair enough."

At this point Alia's voice came to us over the comlink. "When you're done with this, husband dearest, we are taking a long vacation together. We have a lot of new technology to familiarize ourselves with."

I blushed and Zero sniggered. "New technology? I don't know, humans have been using it for an awfully long time."

"Not like we have they haven't." Alia's retort fairly dripped with satisfaction.

Zero's face went blank for a long moment while I tried unsuccessfully to hold back embarrassed laughter. After a moment, the other Hunter made a half-hearted effort to dope-slap me, which I took as a signal to quit laughing and walk normally. I managed to gasp out a question. "Are we in the Research and Development wing yet?"

"Yes, dear, you have been for a few minutes now. Gate's door should be up on your right before long."

Zero made a face at Alia's response but said nothing. I noticed that few reploids inhabited this section of MHHQ at the moment; only logical, I supposed, since the most damage had occurred elsewhere. Zero's voice on the comlink interrupted my thoughts.

"Alia, are you sure you can't find any records for the cameras in the hallways between here and the brig at the end of the battle?"

"I've been over every internal surveillance file in this base. Twice. The records we want have been corrupted into nothing but static." Alia's tone reflected no small amount of concern over this state of affairs. "I haven't found a good explanation as to why just yet."

"Real nice." Zero let a breath escape through his teeth. "Whatever. Just let us know if anything useful pops up."

"I don't think he made it through the maze around the brig anyway, Zero," I interjected. "We'll probably find an empty la—"

The other android stopped me with a motion for silence, then tapped his ear and glanced at me significantly.

0X0X0

While X went on about probably's and maybe's, my ears picked up a faint but distinctive whirr from somewhere nearby. I stalked quietly down the hall towards Gate's door, and sure enough, the sound got louder and louder and I determined that it originated from far inside the egghead's lab. I voiced my thoughts over the comlink channel only to keep from giving away our position with sounds. "Recognize that noise?"

He nodded and responded over the comlink in kind. "That's from an autoforge. Gate's unit is specialized for constructing his Multi-Dimensional Interfaces. If it's on, he's probably the one who activated it."

"Wait, he's actually in there? How did he make it out of the brig area in one piece?" Alia came across with a tone of total incredulity. "I've seen whole squads of combat reploids go in there and vanish. Someone like Gate shouldn't stand a chance."

I permitted myself a brief, grim smile. Life had a funny way of proving my instincts right. "He's more dangerous than we thought, then. We'll find that out how he escaped the brig after neutralizing him. After all, a good old-fashioned decapitation should leave his brain intact. Mostly."

"Good, because if he had anything to do with Blue Rider and Sparky's disappearance, I want every detail on how it happened and where we can find them now." The other reploid spoke over the comlink in clipped tones. "I've called for the rest of the 17th Unit to come as quickly as they can. I don't see any reason to risk sending you two in without any backup."

"Wait. What if we're all wrong and his only crime is escaping the brig?" X broke in with an agitated tenor to his voice. "I'm not comfortable opening fire on a potentially innocent reploid."

I responded over the comlink in a carefully level tone. "He broke out of brig during an attack on HQ and made it all the way out of the maze of deathtraps on his own. Even if that is all he's done, it makes him a dangerous criminal; use of lethal force is totally legitimate."

Somehow, someway, I kept a straight face through that entire load of BS. Gate, you son of a gun, thank you for finally giving me a reason to beat you senseless.

X peered at me suspiciously; I struggled even harder not to smile. Alia broke in right on time, saving me from the Blue Bomber's gaze attack.

"Don't worry, dear. If this is the Gate we know, he'll curl up in a corner the minute you two break in. The backup will be there momentarily just in case of any problems."

My face broke in an evil grin. Go on, Gate, I thought. Be a problem. I won't be mad. I'll just put you in the hospital for a while. You'll like that, right? A nice looooong stay in the infirmary…

At this point the grinding drone from inside Gate's laboratory gave way to a thin whine. My saber hand twitched. X gave me a worried look and I spoke up on the comlink again, body tingling with anticipation.

"Honeyhair, he's finishing up in there. Whatever unit he's working can't be good things for us, either. We're going in. Got it?"

A moment passed before she responded. I backed away from Gate's door and eyed the red lettering of his name over the top. X knelt to one side of the door with both busters charging, his newest set of armor gleaming white and gold in the light. His wife finally spoke.

"All right, go ahead. The others will arrive shortly."

A grin split my face at the other blonde's "permission" and I lit up both dash jets to rush that door headlong.

About time we get this party started, Red Ripper style.

G0G0G

The Voice reached out to me in a sudden, piercing hiss. In its ancient language it warned me of the danger lurking outside, and my eyes widened in desperation. My hands fumbled for the autoforge's emergency stop and ripped open its mechanical door before the parts had ceased their useless motion. Could they not see? I needed that MDI!

At the very moment I dragged the Multi-Dimensional Interface from inside, the door to my laboratory exploded from its hinges and clattered noisily to the floor. I whirled with the machine in hand, ready for one last, desperate measure.

I gasped as the door burst in, but despite my fear, I found my fingers engaging the controls for my device. I had to win. With the gate to subspace already open, I had only to send an enemy away to gain an ally from the Voice.

0G0G0

Crunch! The plain steel panel crumpled on impact with my heavy frame. My dash jets carried us both into the room with a furious hiss of escaping plasma; I curled and turned in mid-air to dash right before Gate's presumable first attack had a chance to connect. The egghead wouldn't even finish peeing his pants from surprise before I moved in for the knockout, but still, no reason to take chan—

Gate's metal door clattered to the floor and vanished without a trace.

"Back me up, he's armed! It's some kind of ranged disintegration weapon!" I yelled to X and Alia over the comlink. Meanwhile, I whirled and zigzagged across the crowded floor to the back of the lab. Gate pointed some kind of metal box at me and pressed a trigger.

By the time he did, I had already ducked underneath a handy workbench. Boss-level red armor plating or not, I didn't want to get hit with a weapon that made things vanish. At least X and I had checked the idiot's lab ourselves and instead of sending a couple of raw recruits like Signas wanted to do.

Plasma screamed in from the doorway and blew holes in the lab. Gate screamed and I knew X had hit home. The stupid scientist reploid didn't even have any armor to begin with! I didn't know how he expected to bring us down, even with that weird new weapon.

In spite of all that, my grin popped right back into place. Against all odds, and for all that he acted like a grade A wussyface most of the time, Gate had stepped up and shown some guts. He granted my wish for a fight after all.

I maneuvered around the workbench and leapt over another piece of machinery, saber drawn and flashing in at the enemy. I took in the scene in mid-air: Gate lay in a pool of burning internal fluids, his torso a twisted wreck from X's attack. His right hand groped blindly for the box he used as a weapon, which had fallen half a meter away, just outside his scrawny reach. I angled my fall with a burst of dash jets and brought down the Z-Saber for the final blow.

My body slammed into a solid wall of steel. I rolled off to the side and landed on my feet, firing off a few shots with the Z-Buster to keep Gate distracted, and saw what had stopped my attack. A bulwark of glittering dark metal stood directly in the path of my downward swipe. Something else seemed off about it, too, but my quick glance didn't tell me what.

Without warning, a giant tentacle of tooth-edged machinery leapt from the floor and grabbed for my waist. I reacted with a quick dash back and a jump, but the tentacle stretched like a rubber band and caught my leg at the ankle. Another tentacle sprouted from the wall and grabbed at my right hand to stop my Z-Saber's counterattack. I flinched away from it just in time to keep control of the weapon and the other tentacle yanked hard on my leg, jerking me suddenly across the floor.

Wicked purple plasma shot in all directions. Screams rent the air, both X's and Gate's: fury from the Maverick and pain from the Blue Bomber. Somehow, the weakling scientist had returned fire on X and actually wounded him through his Fourth armor. I heaved with my abdominals to curl forward and cut away the tentacle grabbing at my leg. Another wide slash, and the other tentacle and two more like it fell convulsing to the floor. The danged things kept coming out of nowhere!

Finally, fighting through the smoke and flames springing up around the room, I spotted Gate. There he lay, still twitching and bleeding, his arms holding that blasted little box. I fired off a fully charged shot from the Z-Buster and zigzagged across the floor to cut him in half. As expected, a wall of dark material popped up and absorbed the blast from my ranged attack. I dodged around it and cut away a pair of tentacles to reach Gate.

But **** it all, I never made it. Not then, not ever.

Gate beat the world's most powerful machine with nothing but a stupid metal box.

X0X0X

Zero shoulder-rushed his way through the door and into the room with a quick burst of dash jets. The moment he called for support, I popped around the corner and fired off a brace of charged shots with the Fourth armor enhancement. They hit; Dr. Gate fell with a gaping wound in his side and one leg scorched beyond usefulness. Indirect hits to prevent damage to the power core, but more than destructive enough to give my friend an opening.

Zero sprang over a piece of furniture with saber drawn and ready for a killing blow. It was all over.

Then, out of thin air, a structure of black metal sprang into existence two inches from Zero's face. I fired my other two charged shots at Gate, who had pointed a strange little box in my direction. The flashes of plasma disappeared without a trace.

The metal door Zero had busted in was gone too, and I had witnessed Gate summon up a contorted piece of metal to protect himself. My gut wrenched once I realized the implications. If Gate had a system for making things disappear and reappear in a form that suited him…

I sprinted further into the room as my Fourth armor gauntlets regained their charge. Another few seconds and I'd have another four full-power shots ready to go. At the moment, though, I wished I had a better shield weapon than Bubble Crab's in case—

—searingly hot flashes of purple plasma flew at me from every direction. At the last instant I tried to dodge, but the attacks came from the worst possible angles with no forewarning whatsoever. My world went white with pain as three of the blasts caught me at once. By the time I regained control of my senses, my pain responses had cut off as my mind focused completely on the battle.

An enormous, hideous, toothy maw dropped from the ceiling like a guillotine. I scrambled away as fast as arms, legs, and dash jets could take me, but the monstrous open mouth still grazed my body. More horrifying still, the dropping mouth didn't stop when it hit the floor, but dove through it like a fish into the water. On the way, the monster's hook-shaped teeth scraped across the Fourth armor and nearly wrenched my leg from its socket; only the incredible hardness of Dr. Light's custom materials kept the monster's fangs from puncturing the armor and dragging me along for the ride.

On the other side of the room Zero similarly struggled for his life. Tentacles erupted from the walls, floor and ceiling and reached for him with serrated edges. I leapt to my feet and moved with quiet speed towards the spot I'd seen Gate last, my buster reaching maximum charge once again. Even as I spotted the researcher amidst the wreckage and flames, I heard running feet and voices in the hallway outside. The cavalry Alia promised had arrived.

From what Zero and I have put together since then, they arrived just in time to see us disappear.

AXAXA

I teleported into the hallway with half of X's squad. Wrenching screams, explosions and smoke emanated from Gate's laboratory; my core went cold, then furiously hot as I recognized one of the screams as X's. My telempathy system communicated sudden pain and fear in concert with the noise, further confirming how badly my husband suffered.

My feet carried me halfway to the doorway before I knew I they had moved. The Alia Buster hummed with charged power, ready to deliver a consciousness-ending EMP to the suicidal fool with the nerve to attack my husband.

As I arrived, I saw one last tableau.

Broken machinery and destroyed lab equipment covered the room. Parts of the original walls had disappeared as if carved out with a giant ice cream scoop, while walls of weird black metal rose from ground that had been bare. Fires, no doubt started from plasma and other weapons fire, fed hungrily on anything that could burn.

X had his buster raised and ready to fire, Fourth armor glowing faintly in the smoke filling the room. Scorch marks covered the plating and the filigree on one shoulder had melted completely. A flash of red and gold in the back of the room gave away Zero's presence as well. Hazards and debris blocked any view of their opponent.

And then, abruptly, it all disappeared. Zero, the room, and my dearest Megaman X, all gone. My husband's feelings cut off like a river dropping off a quantum precipice and into the abyss.

For a fraction of a second, Gate and a little grey metal box—an MDI, I recognized—hung motionless at the center of a sphere of near-perfect emptiness. I saw then that he had not survived the battle unscathed; one leg dangled uselessly from the hip, and his torso sported an enormous, burned hole. X had hit him twice with fully charged shots, both glancing blows.

My ears popped with a sudden pressure drop, then popped again as atmospheric pressure returned. The sphere of emptiness reached from one wall to the other, down into the thick concrete foundation and up into the second story of the building. Furniture and papers rained down from the gap like a surrealistic rain.

Gate's wrecked body fell to the bowl-shaped floor with a crack of skull on concrete. I leapt headlong towards him, the Alia Buster crackling with overcharge, and fired an EMP at the weapon's newly enhanced full power. The reflected wave alone disoriented me; Gate's reploid brain likely fused in a dozen places. I landed on the concrete with an awkward roll that brought me next to the evil researcher's unconscious body.

"Where is my husband! Murderer!" I grabbed him by the scorched lapels of his lab coat and shook the reploid like a rag doll. "How dare you kill him! How dare—how…"

The tears came then. Bitter, furious tears streamed from my eyes as the excess of emotion flooded my body's natural responses. I punched the unconscious reploid heavily in the jaw before closing my hands around his throat to throttle him. I became conscious of other reploids around me, X's squad members, and ignored them. Nothing they did could bring my husband back to me. If he was still alive somewhere, if Gate's technology had not dropped him and Zero into a black hole in some other dimension, the secrets for finding their location doubtless lay in Gate's own memory matrix. Until he died, I couldn't be sure he wouldn't delete the files like so many Mavericks deleted their secrets before death.

Oh, and strangling him gave me such a thrill. My fingers crushed Gate's windpipe and continued compressing, bending the metal out of order and tearing the soft, thin plastic of his flesh.

"How dare you…"

"I'll be taking that."

An unfamiliar voice spoke from above me, pitched like a woman's but heavily digitized. A sudden scuffle broke out around me and I glanced up to see one of the ugliest reploids ever designed.

Her body looked like parts from three different machines soldered together into one Frankensteinian abomination. One huge circular yellow eye dominated the right side of her face, while paneling and wires covered the left. She had no mouth. Speakers on her neck emitted the reploid's stilted speech, and a set of four misshapen, spindly arms sprouted from her torso. That was enough. I transmitted an alert and called for more reinforcements over the comlink.

An impact beside me drew my attention. Rockstar had dropped to the ground, head rolling unevenly towards the center of the floor. Further to the side, Rumble Rhino and Sprint Eagle engaged a fighter that moved so fast he blurred. Whirling to face the misshapen reploid again, I released Gate's throat and jumped to my feet, sidearm coming quickly to hand. This monster and her accomplice had something to do with what happened to X and Zero. I pointed at the reploid's eye and pulled the trigger without hesitation.

The one-eyed robot's head snapped back one, two, three times, each of my shots leaving a huge melted divot in her face. Shattered, half-molten bits of glass dripped from the ruined yellow optic. Rather than dodge or block, the junkheap of a reploid took the hits without complaint and fired at the floor with her own weapon.

What happened next defied my understanding of both weaponry and teleportation. The ground opened up and swallowed the four-armed machine along with Gate's broken form. An orange-rimmed image of the room upstairs lay embedded in the concrete where they had been; then, in another moment it disappeared, leaving the ordinary concrete once again.

Before the portal vanished, though, I heard the reploid's digitized voice once more. "Come on, Tsukishima."

Another two impacts sounded behind me, and I looked back to see the enemy fighter standing by my squad members' sliced-up bodies. The man, apparently named Tsukishima, wore no armor, only a white-collared shirt and clean black slacks held up with black suspenders; his features matched those of a human even more closely than X's did. His right hand gripped a plain-looking metal katana with a bookmark-shaped crosspiece. The look in his eyes threatened death with such cold intensity that I almost hesitated to open fire.

Almost. He held Gate's newest MDI in one hand and I had a husband to recover.

The next three energy pulses from my sidearm sizzled in at the unarmored fighter as fast as the pistol could fire them. He dodged each shot with arrogance written all over his dark-eyed face. I tried my best to predict his next location and lead the shot accordingly, but either he responded too quickly for me to follow or else I misunderstood his attack pattern completely.

My only correct guess came when he jumped for the hole in the ceiling, the place where Gate's last attack had made a chunk of it disappear from existence. As the human-looking fighter leapt through the hole, an EMP from the Alia Buster rippled invisibly through the same spot he occupied. His momentum carried him up out of my line of sight, but with no armor and no detectable electronic countermeasures, the attack had doubtless forced his electronic brain into unconsciousness.

I sent in a code to teleport directly to the room where the fighter had landed, along with a copy of all my data from the battle so far. A moment later I felt a rush of teleportation take me there in a flash of light.

When I looked around, the empty office greeted me like a tomb. Half of its door dangled uselessly from the hinges; the other half lay on the floor, the faux wood cut clean through.

They were gone. They were gone, and they had taken Gate and his secrets with them. My beloved husband, our loud-mouthed friend Zero, and with them the hope of all humanity against Sigma had slipped away like superfluid helium through the bottom of a flask.

I gritted my teeth and sobbed into the uncaring floor, fists clenched so hard my fingernails bit into the skin. Through the grief and the pain, a burning raged through my emotions, stronger and more bitter than any I experienced as a mere reploid.

At that moment, I learned about hatred, but that wasn't all. Not by a long shot. My fists clenched and unclenched and I forced myself to stand. A grim look settled on my face as I finally answered Signas' desperate attempts at communication.

"I'm here, General. Commanders X and Zero are gone and Gate is neutralized. They have his body and one of his MDI's; I'm transmitting as much information as I have in file format. Terminate the invaders with extreme prejudice and bring them to me."

Purplish coolant seeped slowly from the fingernail marks in my palms. Gate's translucent green coolant dripped from where it had splattered onto my armor. I wondered, idly, what color of fluid the invaders used to regulate their temperature; the thought of finding out brought the corpse of a smile to my face.

Because in the moment I learned about hatred, I decided to learn about revenge.

* * *

><p><em>Author's note.<em>

_This fiction will take X and Zero to places in the multiverse that no one deserves to go. Humans and reploids alike will fight for their lives in this and many story arcs to follow. _Writing the next three chapters alone has given me nightmares involving my own violent death-and I will not say what else. I can only hope the nightmares will cease once I finish. __

_But, let's get to the point. Many of X and Zero's adventures from here on out will require an M for Mature rating on account of violence to humans (as opposed to very humanlike robots). However, I will try to craft the T-rated chapters in such a way that they stand alone, leaving the M-rated story arcs under their own heading: "X and Zero, SE: The Darker Worlds". __Together, the two stories will form my greatest masterpiece to date; to get the full experience, simply read the chapters of the combined story in their appropriate numeric order. _

_Now that you're all confused and frightened, feel free to enjoy the rest of the story! The first chapter of "X and Zero, SE: The Darker Worlds" is posted already. Go to my profile to find it most easily._

_My nightmares are waiting._


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